A. Warm-Up: She/He/They/We are!

1. if in person, class arranges themselves with the teacher into a circle. Each student “introduces” themselves to the group (even if they already know each other), by stepping into the middle of the circle, describing themselves in the third person, naming themselves, and adding a descriptor.

Examples: “He is Raul, and he is a musician.” “They are Lee, and they are funny.” The class then choruses back the same line: “He is Raul and he is a musician.” This gives all participants a chance to name their pronouns and to consider one theme that informs their identity.

On a digital platform, encourage students to turn on their camera if you know that is a comfortable option for all participants. Furthermore, ask students to turn on their mics for the duration of the activity, monitoring their own background noise and turning off if their space gets too loud. Ask one student to start and spotlight each student as they speak. The choral response back will be loud and chaotic but try to play it with it and see how it goes. Modify as is necessary for the size of your group. Ask each student to pass to the next speaker.

Optional (and fun!) expansion: Round 2, each student adds a physical motion to their lines. The group then needs to repeat their lines and the motions back to them.

Optional (and even more fun!) further expansion: Memory challenge, each student steps into the circle, or is spotlit on Zoom, and the group has to remember their lines and motions and do them for each individual.

(Resource: Theater of the Oppressed)

B. Screen film; “Elaine is Almost”

1. Allow for some supported but open-ended reflection immediately following the film. While you conduct the discussion, ask a student to chart ideas and responses where the group can view. Useful prompts: :
2. What do you learn about Elaine?
   1. How do you learn that? What in the film gave you that information or impression?
3. What do you learn about the interviewer?
4. What is their relationship?
5. Would you want to be interviewed like this?

C. Introduce content: Ethics in Interviewing

1. Review & discuss these three core standards from the Center for Media & Social Impact:
   1. Honor your (vulnerable) subjects. Protect them from attack and don’t leave them worse off than when you met them.
   2. Honor your viewers. Make sure that what they understand to be true and real wouldn’t be betrayed if you told them where and how you got that image.
   3. Honor your production partners. Do what you contracted to do, even if you made that bargain with yourself.
      1. Expand with this point: Narratives about people from oppressed communities (POC, queer, undocumented, women) often focus on trauma and suffering, as if those are the only stories they have to tell. It’s important to be mindful of avoiding these pitfalls and stereotypes when approaching an interview subject.
2. Ask: Does “Elaine is Almost” follow these standards? Do these shift if the interviewer and subject know each other? If so, how?

D. Closing

1. Have each student stand up, or be spot lit, and have class call out their descriptor from the opening. For example, if Raul stands up, the class calls out “musician.” ~or~
2. Have each student share in a round robin what the title of a documentary about them would be.

Homework: Have students finalize a list of 4-6 questions they would like to be asked in an interview.

Lesson 2

A. Warm-Up

1. Feel free to repeat circle of introductions from Lesson 1; either in full or abbreviated.
   ~or~
2. Ask students to share who they would like to interview, living or dead.

B. Interviewing each other

1. Review this list of interview tips from Radio Rookies.
2. Explain activity first:
   1. Randomly broken into groups of two.
   2. Before interviewing, you’ll combine the questions you each wrote for HW. Together, you’ll also return to Great Questions List, and add 2-4 more questions from that list. Now both students will have a list of about 8-12 potential questions.
   3. There will be two rounds. Choose who will be the interviewer and who will be the interviewee for the first round. You’ll switch for the second.
   4. Each round will last five minutes. Teacher will keep time, and then switch.
3. Before breaking into groups, write a class “Interviewing Code of Ethics.”
4. Break students into groups of two and help everyone find spaces to work.
5. Proceed with interviews.

C. Share out

1. Lead a discussion; ask for a student to chart while you lead.
   1. Reflection:
      1. Take a few minutes for students to share how it felt, what it was like, which role they preferred, what was scary, what felt good, etc.
   2. Identify themes and patterns.
      1. Again, ask for a student to chart while you lead.
      2. Ask groups to name what themes and topics came up in the interviews; help students keep this broad-instead of starting to tell the story of what happened during their subject’s 5th birthday, have them state “Birthdays.”
      3. After charting, notice if any patterns emerged.

D. Visual patterns & Self-Archiving

1. Prep for second screening of film.
   1. Before watching, display and define these terms:
      1. Archive: (from Wikipedia)
         1. An archive is an accumulation of historical records – in any media – or the physical facility in which they are located.
         2. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or organization’s lifetime, and are kept to show the function of that person or organization.
         3. Archival records are normally unpublished and almost always unique, unlike books or magazines of which many identical copies may exist.
      2. Primary source: (from Wikipedia)
         1. (also called an original source) is an artifact, document, diary, manuscript, autobiography, recording, or any other source of information that was created at the time under study.
   2. Watch “Elaine is Almost” again; only this time without sound.
      1. Discussion: Again, ask for a student to chart while you lead.
         1. What did you learn about Elaine just from the images you saw?
         2. What did you see that gave you that information and/or impression?
   3. Instant Archive
      1. Ask students to pull out their backpacks or bags and choose three objects that they feel expresses something true and unique about their identity.
      2. Have students take photos of those objects in class and post to the class Instagram account.
      3. Set up a shared view of the Instagram feed and discuss what information those images give about the class as a whole.

E. Closing discussion: They are history in the making

1. Discuss: Are these interviews important, why or why not? What do our personal details tell us about the times we live in? Why might “Elaine is Almost” be important for someone to watch in fifty years?.
   1. Social media: All those IG stories and posts; what do they share there? What might it tell future generations about themselves?
2. Closing: Round Robin style, strike a pose that would go on a poster advertising a documentary about you.

Homework: Interview a member of your household or a close friend; someone who you can sit down with without too much trouble arranging. Film that interview, keeping in mind the Code of Ethics and Interviewing Tips reviewed in class. Experiment with adding images of objects and rooms to the interview. Share interviews to class Instagram and hold a class screening to end the project.

Extensions

• Expand into a focus on visual storytelling, animation and collage. In this extension, instruction would shift to studying collage and visual editing.
• A class takes on a shared topic and conducts a series of interviews focusing on that theme. Obvious and compelling examples could be: the COVID 19 pandemic, the uprisings over racial injustice and violence. But students may also want to focus on less all-consuming topics: Dating, cooking at home, applying to college. Open discussions with their group will likely lead to a rich array of themes.