Welcome

Why

    Have you ever had a moment when you realize that your students don't know how to interview someone?  Well I did.  I had my students do their first set of interviews without me interviening, and I had some funny results. For example, I listened to one student call an elder and when the elder answered she immediately asked her question without first introducing herself or why she was calling.  The elder caught off gaurd asked who was calling, and the student told her name and then asked her question again.  The elder was great and responded to her question, but in listening to the interaction I knew that my students needed to learn how to properly interview someone.  The following lesson plan is how I addressed that need. 

c

How

Introduction:

1. First listen to some of the previous week's interviews.

2. Ask students to collaborate with their group what was good about the interviews. Then share out and create a list on the board of positive attributes.

3. Ask students to collaborate with their group which attributes need to be worked on, and then share out.

 

Lesson:

1. Now that students have decided what they liked and didn't like, they are going to work on what needs to be included in each interview.  I show them a new paper/slide with the title Interview Essentials.  "What do you think the person you are interviewing needs to know before you ask your question?" Most students will respond with "my name". So write name on the list."Yes, your name, what else?  Do they need to know that you are a student?" So I write after name sentence stem for introduction:Hello, this is _____ a student at Akiuk Memorial School.

 

2. "Now they know who is calling, what else might they want to know?" I try to lead them to the point that we need to explain why we are calling. So I write on our list under name:purpose. Then I write the sentence stem: I'm calling because we are learning about _________________ and I was wondering if I could ask you a question about _____________________.

 

3. "Okay, so now they know who is calling and why, but what else might you need to say?" I want students to get to the fact that we need to tell the interviewee why we called them specifically.  This usually takes me explaining it to them.  We title this section on our list as flattering.  Then I write the sentence stem: I am calling you because you know about/good at _________________.

 

4. "Now are we ready to ask our question? (yes) Before we ask our question we need to ask them if it is okay to record there response? (Add to list: Ask Permission and the sentence: Do you mind if I record you?) Great, what do we need to do while they are talking? (listen, record, take notes)? Good so we need to actively listen to our speaker.  Great lets add that to our list. Finally, after they are done what do we need to do?" (Say thank you) Add "thank for time" to list.  

 

Activity:

1. "Earlier you listened to Esai talk about hunting in the past, and wrote down some questions you wanted answered.  I want you to collaborate with you group about who you would like to interview to answer your questions, and write a script that you can use to interview with. Your script must include the attributes that we outlined.  You can use the sentence stems provided or create your own as long as you have all of the key elements include. Once you have completed your work in English, I want you to write it in Yup'ik.  Remember though it should not be a word for word translation, but must still have the required elements."  Have students get into their groups and begin working.  When students are done have them practice their script in Yup'ik, with each student taking a turn.

 

2. "Now that you have had a chance to practice.  I would like one person from each group to share with the class your script.  This is your chance to get feedback on what you can add to your script to make it even better."  Have groups share out what they wrote, and then put in their group folders to use for tomorrow. 

 

Closure:

1. Exit ticket: What is one attribute that needs to be included in a good interview script?

 

 

Results and Reflection

    I found that after this lesson students were able to write out better scripts to interview elders with, and thus the conversations went much better.  This lesson also gave students direction on how to be effective in their in their interviewing. Below is a few examples of student work.In the written examples students first wrote their interview in English, and then worked to write it in Yup'ik. This is a great example of how they used Collaborative Dialogue to write a script.  The audio clips are actual interviews that the students did of elders in our community.  You can hear that they are actually using their scripts and following the model.