Interview Tips & Questions
In order to get a good story, it’s important to
- Prepare for your interview, meaning planning questions and practicing with your tech.
- Have a great list of questions (a sample list os below)– you don’t have to use them all, but may want to highlight key ones you do ask everyone.
- Brainstorm some specific wild blueberry-related questions as a group. Add them to the list below. You may want to review past student-made videos first, and see what kinds of topics are most interesting or compelling.
- Condense your list from all the questions below and those you generate to a concise set of questions, and agree to the top 7-10 as key questions asked in all interviews.
- Begin with an icebreaker to establish trust and relaxation–for both of you. This is one of the few times you may want to also join in the conversation, but in general practice saying little, and practice nodding, smiling, reacting with some facial gestures to give interviewee the full audio soundtrack–otherwise you may spend lots of time editing your interruptions and comments. “What did you eat for breakfast today? Or what is your favorite meal? Or, how did you meet a specific person?” Are good general icebreakers. Easy, familiar, fun.
Most interviewees feel calmer if you can send a few key questions ahead of time. But assure them that the process is informal, and will follow your goal (documenting the full range of the culture around wild blueberries) and their interests for the most part.
Avoid yes/no questions! And be willing to ask the person to answer the same questions again if the first time it didn’t work somehow–they changed their mind, the equipment malfunctioned, etc. Second times are often fine.
You will need to create a Release Form that you should give interviewees when you first set up the interview, ensuring that they as well as you retain rights to use the materials. A simple sample, which can be adapted to WBHC can be found here: https://nscda.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/ReleaseTemplate-OralHistoryProject.pdf
You may want to also review the Best Practices (and any other resources) of the Oral History Association: https://oralhistory.org/best-practices/
Types Of Questions
- General questions
- Homelife & hometown
- Relationships
- Family life
- Work and profession
General questions
These are general and wild blueberry-related questions. While your focus may be on the stories of wild blueberries, it’s also important to think of what kind of lives people had in wild blueberry regions. Some may have only been indirectly affected by the presence of wild blueberries, others may have been fully involved. The people of this region all share a general culture affected by the economy and ecology of wild blueberries. You’re looking for the full history,as well as current dreams.
- Were you born in this area, and if so where?
- How did you get involved with wild blueberries?
- Were wild blueberries a part of your childhood? If so, what were the best memories? Hardest times?
- Who was the most influential wild blueberries person in your life?
- Do you have any other work or hobbies apart from wild blueberries?
- What was the happiest time of your life?
- Tell me about a time when you didn’t know if you would make it.
- Who is the love of your life and how did you meet?
- What is your passion (or a favorite hobby?)
- What is your favorite memory of living in Downeast Maine?
- What do you value most and why?
Homelife & Hometown
- What is your earliest wild blueberries memory?
- Who are your parents? Where did they grow up? Did they grow wild blueberries?
- Where were you born?
- How many siblings do you have and where do you fall in your family?
- What were your chores?
- What is your hometown, and what was it like when you were young?
- Did you like school?
- What did you do for fun?
- How did you celebrate holidays or what were some favorite traditions?
- What were your favorite meals?
- What were some memorable trips or outings?
- Can you think of any funny stories from your youth?
- What is an object you still have from your childhood and what is the story behind it?
- What is a moment from your life that you wish you had a photograph?
Family Life
- Are you or have you ever been married?
- Do you have children?
- What are your family traditions?
- What were your favorite trips or outings?
- Where do you live now and why?
- Who is your best friend?
- What was the happiest time in your adult life so far? Why?
- What was the hardest time? How did you get through it?
- What were the most important values you wanted to teach your family?
- How would you want your loved ones to remember you?
Relationships
- How did you meet your spouse? (A good ice breaker)
- What are some of your early and best memories together?
- Do you have a song, “our song?” or a place?
- When and how did you know it was meant to be?
- What are the challenges in your relationship?
- How do you work through disagreements or differences?
- What are some of your best fun memories together?
- Do any trips or vacations together especially stand out?
- Can you think of a low point in your life when the other person was there for you?
- How do you keep your relationship strong?
- How are you alike, and how are you different?
- What do you admire most about the other person?
- What are the other person’s quirks or personality traits that you love?
- How are you better together than without the other person?
- Thinking of your relationship, what advice would you give a young person, such as your children?
- Can you think of long-standing inside jokes, or phrases you tell each other?
- What are some of the activities that you share, that maybe other people wouldn’t understand or that are unique to your relationship?
- What are your dreams for the future together?
- Would you say that this person is the love of your life?
Work and Profession
- What was your first job? When did you get involved with wild blueberries?
- What is your current profession or job?
- Do you like your job? Do you like growing wild blueberries?
- How do you interact with wild blueberry growers if you are not yourself a grower?
- What are the best and worst aspects of being a wild blueberry grower?
- What are you proudest of in your career?
- Who was your greatest mentor?
Adapted from https://evalogue.life which has robust Oral Histories resources.
Our Key Questions
- First
- Second