As part of your research project for this class you will be conducting at least one interview with someone in your family or community who has some intimate experience with the history you intend to write about.  You will have several purposes in this interview:

• to discover the richness of your family and your people's historical legacy
• to connect with a past that would otherwise be lost
• to find direction and focus for your project
• to collect primary source data to be used as evidence as you develop your argument

An excellent model for yourself as interviewer can be found in the figure of Artie in Maus.  He seeks not only his father's story of how he survived the Holocaust but, more broadly, the true story of the Holocaust, that which lies in the daily struggles of those who experienced it.  He probes his father when he isn't appearing to tell the straight story; he is critical of his father's account, acknowledging his apparent need to hide certain details obscure them; he seeks both the specifics and their context.

I've made this assignment due in advance of your formal proposal, because I would like you to try to discover a story that lies buried beneath your preconceptions and even the established historical truth.  Your research paper will not be expected to provide a panorama of a period but rather a glimpse into it that reveals particular meaning.  It is appropriate, therefore, that your project begin with questions.  Hopefully, these questions and their answers will lead you to your line of inquiry.

Use The College Writer (page 485) for advice on how to conduct your interview.  The most important suggestion you will find there is highlighted in a green box.  It says: "Based on the interviewee's responses, ask follow-up questions, and don't limit yourself to your planned questions only."  Try to make at least one formal interview but keep your notebook out for more details should your family member choose to contribute more information later.

If you have the equipment, I would suggest you try to record the interview digitally or on tape (audio or video) both for your reference and possibly (with your interviewee's permission) for inclusion on the webpage you make for your project.

When you turn this assignment in, you will need to provide the questions you prepared for the interview, the answers you got to those questions, and a three-page summary of the experience of making this connection with the past.