L.I: To create appropriate interview questions to ask a member of my family about their life

STARTER: Imagine someone was making a TV show about your life. What is one thing that each of these people might say about you? a) Your mumb) Your Intermediate school teacherc) Your best friend

“THIS IS YOUR LIFE”

The Show: “This is Your Life”

• Thirty-eight New Zealanders so far have been honoured in the New Zealand version of the show.

• Recipients are iconic New Zealanders who have made a significant contribution to the country.

• This Is Your Life looks behind their well-documented public stories to reveal amusing anecdotes, interesting facts and personal insights.

• The most recent person to be honoured on “This is Your Life” was rugby great, Zinzan Brooke in October 2011. Other recipients have included the Mad Butcher, Peter Leitch, and racing car driver Scott Dixon.

YOUR TASK…..

…. is to write a story about the life of someone in your family

HOW WILL YOU DO THIS? You will need to: 1. Identify a person in your family whom you will be able to contact

in person or online this week to interview them about their life. Preferably choose an older person from your family e.g a grandparent.

2. Come up with a wide range of questions to ask your interviewee.

3. Write up the information you find as a story.

For example…..

Mary was born in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada in 1898. She was the fifth of seven children – two girls and five boys. Her family were farmers and on their farm they kept cattle and horses and also grew their own vegetables.

When Mary was little she attended the local primary school, but at this time it wasn’t considered important for girls to have a good education so she finished school at the age of thirteen and then had to help her parents out on the farm. ……etc.

To begin….Choose a family member to interview: – Who would you like to interview? – What made you choose this person?– Do you need their permission and if so, how do

you get this?– Will your chosen person always be open to answer

a range of questions or are there some questions you should avoid?

What sort of questions will you ask?

Think about the questions you will ask. • Which type of questions

will get the most information from your subject?

• Which type of questions will get the least amount of information about your subject?

• What are follow up questions?

The Next Step…

With a partner, write a list of questions that you could ask your interviewee.

Organising your questions

• You will need to sort your questions into a logical order.

• You might need to get started by classifying the stages of life people go through to provide yourself with headings.

E.g childhood, teenage years etc. • What headings will you use to organise your

questions?

What else?

• You might be able to see family photo albums or other documents such as school reports of birth certificates – this would be useful and interesting.

• Don’t be too nosy – there might be some areas or incidents in a person’s life that they don’t feel comfortable talking about.

To finish….

With a partner choose one of the best questions you have come up with. Be prepared to share it with the rest of the class.

OUR IDEAS• What sports were you good at?• Did you have lots of friends when you were young?• Was your family wealthy when you were growing up? (How well off was your

family when you were young?)• What was your childhood like? • How was school life back then? Did you enjoy it? • What did you want to be when you were young?• Were your family parents or teachers strict and how did they discipline you?• Were you spoilt when you were young?• What were some of the biggest changes in your life when you were a child?• What was your dream job?• Where did you live when you were younger?• What were your hobbies?• Did you experience any wars or great events in history?