You will be conducting an in-depth interview with a woman in your family (your mother, aunt, grandmother, sister, etc.) This is a rough guide to the interviewing process.

1. Prepare a list of questions to ask your interviewee. You are trying to find out as much as possible about her life. For example, your questions may focus on her childhood, her parents and family, what her hopes and desires were, how her marriage/s (if she is married) came into being, how she sees her role within her marriage, why she made some of the choices she did, her relationship to her children, her reflections on her life so far, what she believes was her greatest achievement, how she survived, what is her greatest strength, what would she like to pass on to future generations, etc., etc. Design the questions to fit the life of the person you are interviewing.

2. Conduct the interview. I would highly recommend that you audiotape it as well as take notes. You are acting as an ethnographer, and you want to capture as closely as possible her words and her truths.

3. Once you have conducted the interview, listen to it a few times. Start jotting down the major themes that keep appearing in her stories and answers. Pick out particularly important quotes from the interview and transcribe them. See if you can construct a coherent narrative based on her answers.

4. Now you are ready to write up a report of your interview. Reflect on what you learnt about the conditions of her life, her choices, your understanding of her situation and its connections to your experience. Make sure you include some direct quotes from her so that the reader is able to hear the narrative in her own voice. Weave in the readings from the class in your analysis.