Interview Process
Checksheet
Completed by ______________________
Contributor ________________________
Good literacy/oral history interviews are tough to do! They require a great deal of planning,
organizing, structuring, and follow through. The steps that follow should guide you through the
process, and help you avoid some of the common pitfalls. Use a copy of this handout for each
interview you do—check off each item and you should be on your way!
I. PLANNING AND PREPARATION
Making Arrangements
Working with your team’s assigned Community Partner(s), identify and select
Contributors/Participants who will be able and willing to provide information you need.
Contributors/Participants may be chosen because their literacy practices and values are
interesting or unique, their literate lives illustrate certain themes or because they have special
knowledge of or occupy a unique position in a historical event, literacy movement, or institution.
Get the contact information for the Participant/Contributor you want to interview. Fill out
a Contact Sheet. The information on this sheet will be important when you send out
invitations to our Community Sharing Night.
Identify your interview team members. All members of the class should work in teams of
at least two people when conducting an interview. Make sure everybody on the interview
team puts the session on their schedules and everybody has reliable transportation so that
they can arrive on time.
Assign Interview Team roles. Decide who will contact the Contributor/Participant, who will
conduct the interview (with an audio or video recorder), and who will take still photographs
(with a digital still camera).
Go over possible interview questions and select 3-5 key questions with which you’d
like to start. Then select 2-4 additional questions as back up ideas.
Make contact with the Contributor/Participant. Let the Contributor/ Participant know
who gave you their name—use
Be clear about your purpose. Talk about the importance of the Collecting the Literacy
Narratives of Black Columbus project: its role in tracing changing literacies and
preserving the voices and histories of Black Columbus.
Emphasize the importance of preserving literacy stories and making them available to
later generations.
Be reassuring about the fact that these are first-hand, spoken accounts, not polished,
grammatical essays.
Don’t forget the important details: mention the four Consent/Permission forms you will
be using. Make certain that the Contributors/Participant understands that their interview
and any photographs you take will be deposited in a public archive and will be available
on the web.
—1—
Ask the Participant/Contributor where they’d like the interview to take place and when.
Choose a setting for the interview that will maximize the respondent’s comfort. Avoid
places where there will be background noise, which will interfere with your recording.
Be precise about the date and time. Let the Participant/Contributor know that the
interview will take approximately and hour or an hour and a half.
Decide if the interview will be audio or video.
Send the Contributor/Participant a “What to Expect During Your Interview” letter.
Make clear plans with the Contributor/Participant. Decide where and when to meet, date
and hour—always at the convenience of the Contributor/Participant.
Exchange telephone numbers with the Contributor/Participant and your team members.
These come in very handy of you get lost or if problems arise.
Always confirm interview plans 24 hours ahead of time. Re-affirm where and when the
interview will take place. Once again, mention the choice of audio or video.
Check out a digital video or digital audio recorder and a digital still camera, which your
partner can use to take appropriate photographs (after asking the Contributor/Participant).
Before conducting your interview, do as much background research as possible on
the life and times in which subjects live(ed). In particular, consider the
Participant’s/Contributor’s life in the context of the Near East Timeline and locate their
address on Google maps.
…..Checking
Your Equipment
Flip camera or Edirol recorder
Check Flip/Edirol operation for 2 minutes
Fresh batteries (do not rely on rechargeables)
Tripod
Digital still camera (for additional still photographs)
Fresh batteries (do not rely on rechargeables)
Other Equipment
Headphones
Extra batteries (you can never have enough)
Pen
DALN Forms printed
Informed Consent
Release
Deed of Gift
About Your Literacy Narrative
Log Sheets (for each Participant/Contributor)
—2—
II. STRUCTURING AND CONDUCTING THE INTERVIEW
Get ready…
Before you arrive at the site of the interview, turn the video camera and/or the audio
recorder on yourselves—shoot some footage of the team members for your The Journey
movie.
Introduce yourselves. State your full names clearly and loud enough to hear—some
Contributors/Participants may be older and/or hard of hearing. Use the Contributor’s/
Participant’s formal name and title if they have one (e.g., Mrs., Reverend, Professor)
If you are in the Contributor’s/Participant’s home, ask where the interview will take place
so you can set up your equipment.
Ask if you can take some photographs. Have one team member take pictures,
Remember to take pictures of the team members and the set up as well as
Set up your equipment and test it.
if you are using an Edirol audio recorder, test audio levels to make sure they are
registering between 1/3 and 2/3 on the display bar and that they are not going into
the red even at the loudest noises.
check the framing and background of video to create an appealing shot
zoom in close to eliminate headroom
make sure you’re not shooting into a light source (the camera will make your subject
too dark)
make sure the interviewer is sitting directly behind the camera so that he/she can
maintain constant eye contact with the Contributor/Participant.
If you are using a Mac laptop, set it up so that the camera is level with the
Contributor’s/Participant’s eyes and then turn down the brightness on the screen.
Get set…
Restate the purpose of the interview: to collect personal narratives about reading and/or
writing practices and values.
Emphasize the importance of preserving literacy stories and making them available to
later generations. Talk about the importance of the Collecting the Literacy Narratives of
Black Columbus project: its role in tracing changing literacies and preserving the voices
and histories of Black Columbus.
Be reassuring about the fact that these are first-hand, spoken accounts, not polished,
grammatical essays.
Go….
Once you ask a Participant/Contributor for a story, do some active listening. Lean
forward, maintain eye contact, nod and smile.
Try hard not to talk except when you follow up or prompt the Contributor/Participant.
—3—
If you’re collecting literacy narratives in a busy public place, you might only have time to
ask a Participant/Contributor for a single story about literacy (“Can you tell us a story
about the role reading and writing as played in your life?”), following up with a couple of
prompts for more. Some of the very best stories are short and memorable. In these
circumstances, it helps to provide people with the What is a literacy narrative?
handout—it may help them remember a good story.
In other settings—for instance, at a Contributor’s/Participant’s home or at the
AAASCEC—you and the Contributor/Participant will have enough time and quiet to ask
for more than one literacy story to tell you a story. In such a case, you might want to try
asking the Contributor/Participant to tell you a story about reading and writing when
he/she was young. Try starting with, “Can you tell us a story about learning to read and
write?” or “Can you tell us a story about reading and writing in school?” After the person
finishes his/her first, story, follow up on something they said (“Can you tell us more about
xxxxxxxx?”) or prompt the Contributor/Participant with request for another story (“So, can
you tell me any stories about the role that reading and/or writing played in your church?”).
Don’t forget to have every participant fill out and sign the 4 necessary forms: The
Informed Consent Form, the Release Form, the Deed of Gift, and the About Your
Literacy Narrative form. Unless all four forms are completed and signed, we cannot use
the Contributor’s/Participant’s narrative.
When Contributors/Participants are filling out the forms, remind them that the more
information they include in response to the questions and fields, the easier it will be for
other people to find their literacy narrative within the DALN. On the “About Your Literacy
Narrative” handout, for instance, encourage the Contributor/Participant to list as many
key words as possible so that others can search on these terms. If, however, a
Contributor/Participant prefers not to respond to specific questions, skip those questions.
III. AFTER THE INTERVIEW/FOLLOW UP
Fill out an Interview Log Sheet—be as complete as possible! The information on
these sheets provides the basis for your discussion in class, your progress reports, your
evaluations, and your team’s The Journey video. Save these sheets!
Write a thank you note (preferably handwritten) to every Contributor/Participant
you interview. Note that they are invited to our Community Sharing Night at the end of
the term. Give the date, location, and time.
Trim the beginning and the end of your recording (use Audacity for audio or Movie
Maker/Quicktime) and save it in your team folder on the AASCEC computers.
Using Picnik (or some other photo-editor), frame and crop the pictures you took for
maximum effect and save them in your team folder.
Upload the literacy narrative and the accompanying photographs to the DALN. Fill
in the fields using the Contributor’s/Participant’s “About Your Literacy Narrative form.”
Be sure to add “BlackColumbus” (no space between the words) and
BlackClombus2010 as two of the keywords for each Contributor’s/Participant’s
story that you upload to the DALN. This very important step will allow us to find all the
narratives associated with the Black Columbus project.
Save the originals of all digital files (your interview, the photographs) in your team
folder on the AAASCEC computers.
Save the originals of all paper forms in a single folder to hand in at the end of the
term. Please do not lose these forms.
—4—