ABOUT THE PROJECT

Over the course of a few weeks, the 6th graders interviewed 16 people who work in the school, and wrote articles about each of them. To help keep track of whom we had interviewed and who was doing the interviews, we had a big chart on the board (see figure below).

Most of the interviews took place in Mr. Drury's classroom, though some interview groups did theirs on location, and each one lasted anywhere from 30-60 minutes. The interviewee sat at a desk while a group of students sat around the person asking questions, and the rest of the class sat around the perimeter of the room and took notes (see photo below). In some cases though, the interview wasn’t in the classroom. A group of students would go out to other parts of the school to do the interviews. The interviewing groups had anywhere from 4 to 6 people. The students spent a lot of time thinking about and writing thoughtful questions. These questions were separated into two categories: questions specifically relating to that person’s job, and questions that you can ask anybody. Occasionally, the interview ended early, so the interviewee could ask questions. This process was amazing, and we got to learn so much more about people.

Once we had all finished the interviews, it was time for writing. The first stage of the writing process was to take the notes that everybody took, and color code them according to their category. For example, if there was a note on the person’s job, then the group would color code it a green, or any other color. Once this was done, each group would start to make paragraphs, according to the colors of the notes, so each paragraph had a different color. Once the articles were written, we had to edit. Each group’s article was projected on the screen so the whole class could edit it, so the group could fix the tiny mistakes. This process was incredibly tiring and tedious, but it was one of the most important parts of writing the articles.

Overall, the entire process of interviewing people and writing about them was extremely exciting and really fun to do. The interviews were probably the best part of the process because everyone got to interact with the person and have conversations. The writing of the article was still fun though, since we got to express what the person was feeling and show how important their job is to the school community. Also, it was great learning what the people we interviewed did outside of school. Now, whenever we see them walking around, we get to look at them in a whole new perspective and in a different way.