Interview Essay
1) Where did you grow up? West Bloomfield
2) How far away from your house was your high school? 15 Minutes
3) Did you have friends in your neighborhood? Not Really, most of my friends lived in Detroit
4) How do you think about “youth,” and being “young?” Fun, not very stressful
a. How would you describe “youth?” Having help living or getting where you need to be.
5) How did your parent/s/guardian feel about your friends? They liked most of them, but also told me some were bad for me.
a. How did you know they felt this way? Did they tell you? They told me.
6) How did teachers and school officials talk with you and your peers about sex? I never had a sex education class, most teachers made jokes.
a. Did you have “sex-ed” in your high school education? No
b. If so, can you describe that experience?
7) Tell me about a break-up you had in high school (if this is not your respondent’s experience, skip this question – listen for their experience before you get to this point to see if this is an appropriate question to ask).
8) Tell me about your first paid job? I worked in the summer for a valet company. Very fast paste job, rude people.
a. How long did you work there? 3 Months
9) Anything else you might like to tell me about?
Youth Welfare – Comic Project, Part 1: Interviews
Summary Due: February 14, 2019
Points Possible: 25
This is the first assignment for the semester long Comic Project you will be asked to complete for this class. For this interview assignment, you will be asked to request an interview with a friend, secure their consent to be interviewed, record your interview, and write up the summary of your findings. You will be provided the interview questions and the format for the summary below.
For the interview: please request time with a friend who is between the ages of 19-23. (Classmates are not eligible for this assignment!) You will also be participating in this interview with your respondent, so it helps if you already have some familiarity with one another. The questions will consist of prompts to illicit responses that will provide another understanding of the Confident Characteristics, orders of discourse, and Recapitulation Theory. Please feel free to expand on the questions if your respondent shares something interesting. Let your respondent talk – and respond to them. If you have similar stories, share them briefly, and continue to ask your respondent for their experiences.
You will want to record the interview, and do not keep your respondent longer than 30 minutes. Once you have concluded the interview, and before you compose the summary, you will want to listen to your interview and make notes of relevant information your respondent has shared with you. You will want to have notes to help you write the summary (instructions below).
Interview Questions: Please use these questions to move through your interview with your respondent. Please read through these questions before going into the interview with your respondent.
1) Where did you grow up?
2) How far away from your house was your high school?
3) Did you have friends in your neighborhood?
4) How do you think about “youth,” and being “young?”
a. How would you describe “youth?”
5) How did your parent/s/guardian feel about your friends?
a. How did you know they felt this way? Did they tell you?
6) How did teachers and school officials talk with you and your peers about sex?
a. Did you have “sex-ed” in your high school education?
b. If so, can you describe that experience?
7) Tell me about a break-up you had in high school (if this is not your respondent’s experience, skip this question – listen for their experience before you get to this point to see if this is an appropriate question to ask).
8) Tell me about your first paid job?
a. How long did you work there?
9) Anything else you might like to tell me about?
Once you have recorded your interview, prepare to make notes over your review of the information. You will need these notes, and your recording, for the writing of the Summary.
Format for the Summary: For the summary of this experience, you will be asked to write a 1-2 page, single-spaced paper, summarizing the relevant data from your interview with your respondent. You will have 30 minutes or less of data to review and include in your paper.
I would like for you to relate your interview findings to the Confident Characteristics, the order of discourse, and Recapitulation Theory.* I expect that you will use at least two direct quotations from your recorded interview, and at least ONE direct quotation from Lesko or Foucault. You will not be expected to have a reference page for this assignment, but you WILL be required to cite, in text, where you pull any ideas from that you use in your summary.
In addition, you will be asked to comment (commentary) on the relationships between what you have learned about the discourse of youth and what information your respondent has shared with you. Do you see your respondent speaking elements of Peer Pressure, Raging Hormones, Coming of Age, and Signified by Age? I have composed questions designed to potentially bring out some of that discourse for you to hear. Lesko says that this discourse of youth is always present in any discussion of young people (and Other) – so it should be unavoidable.
If you find yourself struggling with hearing the discourse in the speaking with your respondent, ASK ME! I am here to help ya’ll!
Please Note: You must NOT reveal the identity of the respondent in this paper. Identification of your respondent will result in an automatic E for this assignment. DO NOT IDENTIFY YOUR RESPONDENT.
Any failure to follow the formatting instructions will result in a loss of FIVE POINTS. If you have questions – ASK ME!
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