PART TWO: IDENTIFYING INTERVIEW STYLE

WARM-UP ACTIVITY

Write the following question on the board: “What examples come to mind when you think of the word STYLE?” (What does it look like?) Have students write responses individually. Share responses and list them on chart paper/white board/smart board. Some possible responses may include: dress; accessories; hair; home; writing; dance; art; eating.

Using a couple as examples, ask students to identify descriptive adjectives for them. For example:

• HOME = country; traditional; contemporary
• DRESS = conservative; business; casual
• ART = modern; pointillism; Renaissance

Ask students if there is such thing as a questioning style, and if so, elicit some descriptions of different types of questioning styles. For example:

• aggressive
• leading
• judgmental

CONCEPT FORMATION

Create a categorization chart as a class to explore what STYLE is and is not. This may look something like the following:

STYLE

What is it? What is it not?

Explain that a person’s questioning style includes similar attributes and that it develops over time much like one’s style of dress, writing, etc. Refer to the O’Brien biography and ask students if they found anything they read particularly interesting or surprising. Tell students that they are going to view a Y-Press interview with CNN newscaster Soledad O’Brien and that their goal is to listen carefully to what she describes her own interviewing style. Encourage them to jot down what they hear and show the video.

You can watch the entire O'Brien video here.

Afterwards, discuss the video and what students heard her say. Have a student list responses to what the CNN journalist said about tone and style on the board.

Some examples may include:

• respect
• contextual
• fair
• thoughtful
• conversational

 Discuss O’Brien’s Andrew Young interview from “Black in America.”

APPLICATION

O’Brien identifies listening as her style. Have student respond to one of these prompts in their journals:

• Give examples of characteristics of a “good listener?”
• What does an engaged listener look like and how can active listening lead to other questions.
• Write about three ways that you can tell someone is a good listener.

Have students read an article about Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination or view another piece from O’Brien’s series, “Black in America.” Compare the article to O’Brien’s report of the story. How does print media (magazines, newspapers) differ from broadcast media? What are the positives and negatives to each media with regard to the story being covered?

LESSON ADAPTATIONS

Gearing up: High school students investigate the controversy surrounding the MLK assassination from several reporting perspectives, including television news clips, magazines or newspapers. The students could compare coverage at the time of the assassination to coverage of a national story today (i.e. Wall Street scandal, election fraud, etc). Ask students to determine if/how access to news media has changed over the past four decades and how those perceived changes have affected news coverage.

HOMEWORK

Explain to students that the next class period will be spent conducting mock interviews in small groups.

In order for students to be prepared to do this, teacher should have a predetermined list of famous people and student groupings so that students may for homework conduct research and prepare questions.

Explain that five students will role play famous people and the rest of the class will be journalists.

Attempt to diversify the list of famous people. The list may include Barack Obama, Lance Armstrong, Beyonce Knowles, Bill Gates, Shaquille O’Neal and Miley Cyrus.

Assign students a famous person or journalist to role play. Divide the class into five teams; each group includes one famous person and multiple journalists. Provide teams with a short biography of their famous person and have students research the individual more in detail as a homework assignment. All students will research an individual and come to class with at least five noteworthy or interesting things learned.

Copyright 2009 Y-Press