Lesson | 50 Minutes
Lesson | 50 Minutes
Preparation and practice are the keys to a successful interview and amazing story. The goal of the interview is to get soundbites that connect with your audience, illuminate the topic, and move your story forward. This lesson can be used alone or in conjunction with:
Interviewing requires you to actively listen, focus, think on your feet, and react appropriately to what the other person says. When you plan for an interview, you need to assess what you don’t know—a metacognitive skill—and learn a lot about the interview subject because otherwise, the interview will be awkward. This is real life, with real consequences if you’re unprepared and a real payoff if you do well—the heart of project-based learning.
Listening and really trying to appreciate where the other person is coming from is also an exercise in empathy and discovering how to connect. These life skills will help prepare students for college and jobs, and interviewing is a great way to address high school ELA and NGSS standards around communication, evaluating pertinent information, pulling important quotes, and emphasizing salient points, as well as ISTE and media literacy standards of digital production and multimedia presentations.
Use these slides with your students to help them prepare for their interview.
Ask students to fill in their pitch sheet and, if they have not already done so, spend 10 minutes writing their interview questions.
Explain that good reporters ask follow-up questions.
Play one of these two interviews and ask students to look for follow-up questions. You can use the transcript to highlight the follow-up questions and ask students why the reporter had to follow-up.
Review what makes a good interview (slides 15-29)
Keys to being a good interviewer:
Before you end the interview:
“What would you like to add? Something we did not cover?”
“What are some misconceptions you’d like to clear up?”
Always debrief after an interview write down your impressions
Divide the class into groups of three to practice their questions.
Explain that each student is going to read their questions and look at their subject as they would in the real interview. Then, students will share feedback to make their questions stronger.
After the group activity, ask each student to share out a question that they want to make better and engage the class in brainstorming ways to make it stronger.
Explain that after the interview is complete, they will transcribe the audio file.
Transcribing is the key to understanding what to use in your story. Play this video produced by students at Etiwanda High School in California to understand why students will not want to transcribe, but really need to!
When your students have finished their transcriptions, the next step is Scripting
Ask students: What did you learn from working on this project? What did you like best about it? What did you dislike and why?
Ask students: How might interviewing skills be useful in your life right now? In the future?
What are four words you can use to start a question that will help get strong and useful answers?
What is a follow-up question and why would you use one?
Learning Outcomes
Students will learn how to research and prepare for an interview, write and ask strong questions, listen closely, and use empathy and curiosity to guide a conversation—critical communication skills for journalism and for life.
When Would You Use This Lesson?
Use this lesson when students are ready to conduct a remote or in-person interview.
Media Literacy + Civics Connection
Interviews are central to most stories in the news. By practicing interviews, students gain a deeper understanding of the reporting process, including the research, conversations, challenges, and decisions that shape the stories they see, hear, and read. Interviews also help students explore different perspectives, follow their curiosity, and connect with people and communities beyond the classroom. Whether they're interviewing a local leader, expert, or community member, students get a real-world tool for learning about the world beyond textbooks and Google.
How are educators putting this resource to work?
“I show this video because some people still remember Katie Couric in my classes and her empathy in interviews is SO strong!”
— Heather Putnam, Desert Edge High School Arizona
Try this: Pair the lesson with a strong example of interviewing in action. Heather uses an interview that demonstrates empathy, giving students a chance to notice what makes an interview feel thoughtful, authentic, and human.
“I love showing (school appropriate) broadcast interview bloopers…as a hook and discuss takeaways, how to predict/avoid common interview issues, etc.”
— Morgan Bricker, Weir High School, West Virginia
Try this: Start with a few carefully vetted interview bloopers and ask students: What went wrong? What could the interviewer have done differently? It’s a fun way to get students thinking about good interviewing before they ever pick up a microphone.
“After we’ve gotten to the point of interviewing someone in class about a simple topic, I direct the students to go back and edit the Find Your Story pitch using the skills they’ve learned about how to write a good question.”
— Julie Tiedens, Black River Falls High School, Wisconsin
Try this: Don’t let the interview lesson live in isolation. Have students revisit a story pitch they’ve already created and revise their interview questions using what they’ve learned. Then, writing a good question becomes part of actually making a story.
“At the end of the lesson, I become the interview subject.”
— Robert Casas, Westview High School San Diego, California
Try this: Let students brainstorm a story about you! Anything from what it’s like to be a teacher in 2026 to how career paths can change over time. Students practice setting up and conducting the interview, then get feedback from you as the interview subject and reflect on their own performance.
Art of the Interview doesn’t have to be a one-and-done lesson. Teachers are using it to study strong examples, laugh through interview bloopers, practice with real subjects, strengthen story pitches, and build the confidence and empathy that make for better interviews.
The best part? The lesson gets students interviewing pretty quickly, and then gives them lots of ways to keep practicing.
See more teacher-tested ideas and share what’s working in the SRL Community Commons here.
A conversation between two or more people where the purpose is to gather information and facts. The interviewer asks questions and the interviewee provides information based on their knowledge about a specific topic or issue.
The term “empathy” is used to describe a wide range of experiences. A generally definition is the ability to sense other people’s emotions, coupled with the ability to imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling. In media-making, creators can have empathy for their subjects and the audience can empathize with the characters.
A short extract or clip from a recorded interview, chosen for its relevance to the story, pungency or appropriateness.
Determine the kinds of sources that will be helpful in answering compelling and supporting questions, taking into consideration multiple points of view represented in the sources, the types of sources available, and the potential uses of the sources. (NCSS D1.5.9-12)
Whether students are constructing opinions, explanation, or arguments, they will gather information from a variety of sources and evaluate the relevance of that information. (NCSS D3.1.9-12 - D3.2.9-12)
Students communicate clearly and express themselves creatively for a variety of purposes using the platforms, tools, styles, formats and digital media appropriate to their goals. (ISTE)
Journalism
Media Literacy
Digital Literacy/Citizenship
Broadcast News
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50 Minutes