1. The Interview
Discovering
Difference: and
Working Toward
Understanding
T
In this interview you work to understand another human
being by developing a receptive and welcoming attitude toward
your interviewee. You
will review the principles of CMM as you understand them,
keeping in mind that this
interview is designed to help you create a positive social world
with another person who is
different from you. Two things to keep in mind from CMM are
to listen in a way that makes
others want to speak to you, and to speak in a way that makes
others want to listen to
you.
You will also make use of Politeness Theory as you speak and
listen in such a way as to
maintain the “face” of another human being, that is, the self-
respect that person has for
him or herself and treating that person with dignity. Recognize
that we all want to be
liked, admired, appreciated and approved. Respond to the
other with empathy and
compassion.

2. Work toward having that “authentic dialog” mentioned by Paolo
Freire. This means
regarding the other person as a genuine subject. Finally, you
will complete the “praxis” as
Freire defines it, by not only acting through the interview, but
by reflecting upon it at the
conclusion.
Finding Commonality
Introduction
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Action/Reflection
You do not have to ask all of these questions. These are
just to prompt you to go forward. These, however, are
good questions and should elicit some deep and
meaningful dialog. Here are some sample questions you
might ask your interviewee:
Key Scenes
1. Please describe a scene, episode, or moment in
your life that stands out as a really positive
experience.
2. In reviewing your life, is it possible to find key
moments that stand out as turning points for you.
These are episodes that you see as a turning point
in your entire life.

3. 3. Could you detail a positive childhood memory
from your early years as a child. Please describe
this in detail. What happened, where and when
did it happen, who was involved, and what were
you thinking and feeling? What does this memory
say about your life?
4. Vivid adult memory. Please identify one memory
that you have had as an adult, something
memorable or vivid that happened to you in your
adult years. Please describe this in detail.
5. Wisdom event. Find an event in your life where you
displayed wisdom. This could be a time in which
you acted or interacted in an especially wise way
or provided wise counsel, or advice, made a wide
decision or otherwise behaved in a wise manner.
What happened, where and when, who was
involved, and what were you thinking and feeling.
What does this memory say about you and your
life?
6. Religious spiritual or mystical experience. Whether
you are religious or not, some people report they
have felt a transcendent sense of something
sacred at one time or another in their lives., some
feeling of oneness with nature or the universe.
After reviewing your life, identify this episode and
describe this transcendent experience in detail.
What happened, where and when, who was
involved, what were you thinking and feeling.
What does this say about your life?

4. Communicating with
Difference
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The Future
Challenges
Personal Ideology
7. Looking ahead to the next chapters in your life,
how do you imagine the future?
8. What are your hopes and dreams for the future?
9. Do you have a life project? This might be
something you have been working on and a
plan to work on in the future chapters of your life
story. It might involve your family or your work
life, or it might be a hobby, avocation or
something else in the future.

5. 10. Looking back over your life please identify and
describe what you now think is the greatest
single challenge you have faced in your life.
What is the significance of this challenge in your
life story?
11. Everybody has regrets in life, even for those who
are happiest or luckiest. Looking back over your
life, please identify and describe your greatest
regret.
12. Consider for a moment the aspect of values in
your life. Describe your overall ethical or moral
approach to life.
13. How do you approach political or social issues?
You do have a particular political point of view?
Are there causes about which you feel strongly.
Please explain.
Building
Positive Social
Worlds
(continued)
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14. Please tell the story of how your religious, moral
or political view may have developed over
time.

6. 15. What is the most important value in living?
16. Looking back over your entire life with all its
chapters, scenes, and challenges, and
extending back into the past and ahead into
the future, do you discern a central theme,
message or idea that runs throughout your
story? What is the major theme in your life story.
Please explain.
17. Ask your interviewee to reflect about what the
interview has been like for him or her. What
were his or her thoughts or feelings during the
interview? How do the two of you feel about
each other?
Submit a summary of how your person responded to
the questions you chose. Also submit your own
reflection of what you learned from this interview.
Include:
• A description of the person you interviewed.
• Anything surprising that you learned about your
person.
• What you learned about yourself that surprised
you about yourself.
• The difficulty of trying to incorporate CMM,
Politeness Theory, and Freirean ideals inside the
interview itself. What specifically did you do to

7. ensure a good interview using these ideas?
Verbally, what did you say. Nonverbally, what
did you do?
• Describe how your feelings about the
interviewee may have changed as the interview
progressed.
• What did you learn about communicating with
people who are different from you by
conducting this interview?
Authentic Dialog
Assignment Details.
Interview someone who is different from yourself. This person
may be much older than you are by many decades, of a different
religion or ethnicity, of a different race, sexual orientation, or
have a disability. The point is to schedule some time to engage
with this person on a deeper, conversational land personal
evel.
Make a careful attempt to create that positive social world as
defined by Coordinated Management of Meaning (listen in a
way that people will want to speak to you--and speak in a way
that people will want to listen to you), work to incorporate the
concept of giving face from Politeness Theory, and try to create
an authentic dialog suggested by Paulo Freire regarding this
person as a subject, rather than as an object. Work to put into
use the ideas we have covered this semester.

8. You will follow the attached protocol and you will create a
deeper reflection in which you will refer to all the ideas noted
above and will discuss how this interview helped you to
understand and communicate with difference.
Blog- after the interview assignment is completed I need a short
blog completed. The blog does not have to be very long. Just
long enough to fill barely a page with double spaced typing.
Here are the details-
Reflect about your interview with someone who is different.
Base your comments on what you learned about your
interviewee and about yourself as a result of having conducted
the interview in this section. You might include elements of
Attribution Theory, Politeness Theory, CMM or other
approaches we have studied to make sense of this experience.