For this Hybrid essay, I’m planing to interview immigrants (students, workers, professionals) and ask them several questions and from those answers I would find my story. I’m planing to make an audio version because it is going to be easy to heard their different accents.
5 responses so far
It’d be good to have more info to work with in your proposal. I gave specific questions to cover in your proposal, and if you covered them, I’d have more to respond to. I think it’s okay and even desirable to let your story emerge from the responses you get. But you’re already manipulating the responses with your questions. What will you ask? This is important. Come up with good questions that will yield interesting responses of the type you want to work with. Make sure you ask each interviewee a fairly (Very) consistent set of questions so you can more effectively put their responses into conversation. Think also about your interview set: who will you interview and how will you make sense of the group? How do they work together, either than all being immigrants? Are they all fairly new immigrants? Of a similar age? From similar geographical locations? Etc? What connects them? How will you communicate your reasons for choosing these people to your readers?
Jay: I wrote this advice on Rebecca’s proposal, and it applies to you, too, so I thought I’d share it with you:
In a project in which you want to interview several people, the results–the data and material you gather–are very VERY uncontrollable. That is to say: it’s hard to know what message your essay might end up making until you gather your material and see what people say, what especially lovely and evocative and intriguing connections, juxtapositions, and surprises emerge. This is actually the cool and fun part of doing an assignment that brings in the voices and ideas of outsiders. It’s a crap-shoot–but I’ve found it’s a very rich crap shoot. It’s “essay serendipity.”
So, you should write up your questions and decide who you will interview soon, what kind of focus you will want your interviews to have, and try to do those interviews soon, so you have some time to work with the material you gather, to decide how you will shape it into an essay with an arc, an essay that develops toward something–some point and meaning. You want to pace and arrange and introduce and reflect on your material in interesting and meaningful ways.
Can anyone clarify to whom this username belong? I am supposed to comment on Jessica’s proposal and I see Professor Smith has addressed the person as Jay.
As far as the proposal is concerned, I think it is interesting interviewing immigrants and I believe it will be wonderful to hear different accents; Perhaps that could be your topic. As an immigrant myself, accent is a big part of my being; it is definitely not a subconscious. I have different accents for different people that I am not sure any longer if I am faking an accent and which one is my “real” accent.
I seem to be recommending the same to everyone in my editing group; Yes, go for the audio essay. Would love to hear more about your story and let me know if you want to talk about it one-to-one.
Tenzin, You’re right. This is Jessica’s proposal! My mistake with the J and as I was responding to all the proposals as quickly as I could…
Jay,
I think the idea for your hybrid/lyric essay sounds great —
Depending on what you ask, you should get some very interesting as well as very different answers. You may learn a lot about various cultures, foods, dress, etc. with or without sound.
Good luck and thanks —
Michelle