INTERVIEW

For this assignment, you will develop an interview questionnaire and conduct an interview (at least 30 minutes, 10-15 questions) with a person over fifty about their life experiences. You must actually speak with the person you are interviewing. Talking in person will yield the best data, but you can also conduct the interview over video chat or over the phone if absolutely necessary. The interview does not need to be conducted in English. In your interview, make sure you ask follow-up questions: ask why and how and for examples. Record the interview and transcribe key quotes to use in your essay. Analyze their life using three concepts from lecture or readings covered during weeks 9, 10, or 11. Your goal is to ask questions that allow you to situate their biography within the historical shifts and social contexts in which it occurred. Your questions should not be answerable with simple yes or no answers. Instead they should help you to place the person’s life experiences in historical and/or theoretical context. Some questions might be: Can you tell me about what it was like in your household growing up? What might I need to know in order to best understand your childhood? Can you tell me about a time that you were treated unfairly in your workplace? At the bottom of your assignment, include the questions that you asked during the interview. These do not count towards the total page count. Rubric (100 total possible points): Application of concepts (25 pts): Show that you have a clear and nuanced understanding of three course concepts and can apply them correctly. Think past the most basic or shallow application of a concept. Feel free to challenge me in your interpretations. Sociological analysis (25 pts): You are analyzing evidence of particular social processes in the material of everyday life. Focus on sociological dynamics and avoid arguments and approaches from other disciplines, such as psychology, economics or philosophy. Be sure that you provide an analytic description of what you are studying: choose details that relate to the points you are making (rather than trying to say everything about it); organize your presentation so that the relationship between the details and your overall point is clear; and draw an overall conclusion about the case you are looking at. Be specific and grounded and don't get bogged down in a jumble of vague ideas. Use of evidence (25 pts): In order to support your points describe specific pieces of evidence, such as specific anecdotes and quotes. Be precise. Show that you asked in-depth and thoughtful questions, and pushed for nuanced answers. Do not use long block quotes unless absolutely necessary. Writing (25 pts): The paper should be no more than three pages, double-spaced, 12-pt times new roman font, with one inch margins. Put your name, the date and a title at the top. The paper should be engagingly written and well edited. The best papers will pack a lot of thoughtful material into the allotted page limit. You do not need to site the course textbook or lecture. If drawing on outside sources, use parenthetical references, including the last name, year of publication, and page number for any direct quotes (for example, Brown 1999: 2). Any widely used citation format is acceptable (e.g. Chicago, MLA, APA, etc.). Some advice: Outline your paper before you write it. Think hard about what you want to say and why it matters. Once you have written a draft, re-read it out loud and trim it down. Have others read your work to make sure you are communicating the message you intend to efficiently. A note on generative AI: You are allowed (though not required) to use generative AI on this paper as long as your use is acknowledged, even if only to generate ideas rather than usable text. Note that the material generated by these programs may be inaccurate, incomplete, or otherwise problematic. Beware that their use may also stifle your own independent thinking and creativity. If you are using generative AI, please write a paragraph explaining how you applied the tool to your work - your prompts, how you revised it, and your own assessment of how useful generative AI was in that application. You do not need to quote the AI as you would any other source.