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Online
Interviews
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Assignment
Summary
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The
instructor must begin by setting up small groups of two students each, in
some kind of communication software that offers synchronous communication.
I've used the Daedalus Integrated Writing Environment (DIWE) and
Blackboard. Since Blackboard is the more widely available,
I will refer to it for the present example. Again, it is very important
to limit the number of students to each chat room to two. If you have an
odd student out, she or he can interview the instructor. Once all students
have joined the appropriate chat room, they should introduce themselves
and begin asking questions. I would recommend leaving at least 30 minutes
for the chat sessions, since it takes a while for each student to ask and
receive feedback for five questions. Moreover, they are going to want to
ask follow-up questions, and THIS is the beauty of this assignment! For
more on this, see the "Instructor Comments" section. Once students are finished
with the interview, they should turn to the archive of the session to remind
themselves of the exchange of ideas. They should be encouraged to use copy,
paste, and searching tools while generating their essays. When they have
finished drafts, I like for them to mail it to the student they interviewed,
so that they can receive feedback before turning it in. Finally, I have
them post it in a public, read-only section of the class web site. Not only
is their work "published," the process begins to build a sense of community
among students in the class.
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Instructor's
Comments
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Why
(you must be asking) not conduct these interviews face-to-face? Students
open up when they're typing into a computer, where they often freeze up
in face-to-face, question-and-answer contexts. And unlike an email or discussion-board
context, the real-time chat encourages follow-up questions. In a sense,
synchronous online communication (i.e., chat rooms) offers the best of both
worlds: you get a transcript of the entire discussion, students get to think
about their replies, and interviewers have the chance to probe their subjects
with follow-up questions. People who don't use chat rooms often lament the
loss of gesture and facial expression, but most of my students possess an
impressive range of online expression. What looks like gimmicky jargon to
me, I've discovered, actually communicates a lot about a person's attitude,
tastes, and personality. Best of all, I ENJOY reading the interview essays
that my students write. They show much more variety and character than they
ever did before; I NEVER see the perfunctory "he said... then I said..."
formula that seemed so common before; and students show more willingness
to speculate about their subject.
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| genre |
profile |
| course |
WRT
101 |
| activity
type |
one-on-one
discussion, interviewing |
| skills |
voice,
generative writing, community building, interpersonal communication |
| duration |
2-3
classes |
| materials/readings |
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| handouts: |
none |
| author: |
Justin
Brent
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