Self-guided activity: Practicing interview skills

What will you need?

1. A place where you can sit comfortably and draw, and a table or flat surface to write against.
2. A piece of paper and a pen or pencil.
3. A person in your household who will work with you on a creative activity.

Step by step

In this activity, you will start by sitting by yourself and thinking. Later you will interview someone by having a conversation with them, and write notes about what they say. You can do all the steps in this activity immediately after each other, or take a break between each step, depending on what works best for you and the person you interview.

1. Think of another person who is very good at a specific skill or activity, and who might participate in an interview with you. It can be a person from your household that you can sit with to interview, or a friend or community member that you can interview over the phone.
   The skill might be in an activity most people think of as challenging, such as playing a sport or a musical instrument, or working in a challenging profession. Or, it might be a kind of skill that is part of daily life, such as cook good food, gardening, cleaning, caring for animals or pets, having a great sense of humor, or being very kind.
   Imagine that person is a famous expert in this skill. Imagine you are a reporter who will interview that famous expert to learn more from them.
2. Invite that person to participate in a short interview with you.
   Explain that you will use their answer to write a report or a news article for fun for this activity. If they agree, agree on a time for when you can conduct your short interview.
3. Prepare for your interview. Continue to imagine that you are a reporter, preparing for the interview. Create an interview plan by writing down questions that you want to ask to learn more from the expert. As you write down questions, think about this:
   - How will you introduce yourself to the expert?
   - What questions can you ask to learn about how they first began learning this skill and how they ended up becoming so good at it?
   - What questions can you ask to learn more about the importance of this skill in their lives, and how they feel about it?
   Review your interview plan. Have you written your questions in the order in which you should ask them? Can you ask the questions in a way that will feel fun, comfortable and enjoyable to the expert? Revise your plan if you wish.
4. At the time you have agreed to, sit down or connect with the expert.
   Have a piece of paper and your pen or pencil ready to take notes with.
   Conduct your interview, starting with the first questions in your interview plan.
   If you want, make the interview more fun by pretending you really are a famous reporter, conducting an interview with a famous expert!
   Adapt your plan and your questions as you conduct your interview. You may find that you want to ask questions in a different order, skip some questions, or ask new questions that you think are important to learn more from the expert. Go ahead and improvise! This is how real-life interviews are!
   Try to listen without interrupting as the expert answers. Try to write down what the expert says, using their own words whenever possible to create quotes. You can also record the interview if you have a recording device such as a mobile phone.
   Take as much time as you want, or until you and the expert feel that you are done with your interview. Take a photo with the expert if you can and if they permit it.
   Remember to thank them for sharing their expertise with you.
5. After the interview, write a short summary to yourself about the interview:
   - What interview questions led to very interesting answers from the expert?
   - What new questions did you ask that were not in your original plan?
   - If you conducted this interview again, what questions would you add, skip, or ask in a different way?
6. Write a short report or news article of what you learned from your interview.
   You can write it in any way that feels creative and enjoyable to you. For example, you could write it in question and answer format, or you can write it as if it were a real news article about this “famous expert” you interviewed. You can include quotes from the expert and the photo if you took one.
7. Share your report or article with the expert or other people, if you want to.
   You can share it in writing or read it a loud as if you were a news reporter!

Create more

• Find a creative way to present your report or article. For example, you could invent a newspaper where it will include. You can add more articles and entries to the newspaper that you create yourself. You can also add photos or drawing to it.
• If the person you interviewed is interested, you could recreate and perform your interview together, creating an audio or video recording that looks like a report for radio or TV.
• Repeat the activity by conducting a new interview with another expert. Revise your interview plan. You can ask questions to a new person, or you can ask new questions to the same person you interviewed.
• Write a set of instructions for someone else who is planning and conducting an interview for the first time. Tell them everything they need to know about how to write an interview plan with great questions! Share them with the person and help them in their journey to becoming a reporter.

Share

Online:

• Send a photo of your interview plan and report/article, along with any other material that you have or have created to the chat group.
• Look for more messages in the chat group to see what other adolescents have created.
• Participate in the conversation!

Everyone (online and offline):

• Keep your interview material somewhere where you can read it again. You should share it with the person you interviewed, and they can give you permission to share it with other people as well if you wish to do so.
• Talk with the person you interviewed or other people about what you enjoyed and learned from your interview.
• Invite people from your household or friends to interview each other about things that you are good at. Share with each other what you learned from the interviews and if they inspired you to become good at it yourself.
• Invite others in your household to gather stories from each other, or from you. Hold a storytelling event or save your stories in a notebook so you can collect them all over time and remember them.