Interview Essay

English 352, Technical Writing

Step 1 - in class, split into groups of two and interview each other, making sure to take notes about specific things to use in the essay.

Step 2 - Write a 1 1/2 or 2 page double-spaced essay with an introduction, body and conclusion, about the person you interviewed. Make sure it has a theme.

Step 3 - Bring four copies of the essay to class for peer review. Peer reviewers will use this Peer Review Questionnaire. You should also make comments directly on the essay to give feedback about grammar, spelling, and unnecessary repetitions.

Step 4 - Using the feedback from your peers and comments from me, revise the essay.

Here is a sample essay:

Carol Siri Johnson
English 352
Interview Essay
9/28/2009

A Well-Rounded Student

     Alfonso Giraldo Hiber-Keneti is a student at New Jersey Institute of Technology who is a perfect example of the “Renaissance man”: he is talented at a wide variety of different things. Alfonso is a jet pilot, a representative for the Russo-Latino Society, an artist, a father and husband, and is studying full time at NJIT. It would be difficult to find another student with as many talents at Alfonso.

     Alfonso became a jet pilot after completing training in France on a scholarship. He grew up in a village on the Amazon and one day, while assembling a robot out of rubber and grass, a local priest saw his exceptional mathematical and scientific ability and arranged for him to visit the consulate in France. In France he took an engineering test and won a scholarship at the Ecole Scientifique. He chose to study flight and was the Valedictorian of his class even though he was only fourteen. After he immigrated to the United States, Alfonso began working as a pilot and presently has a job with Worldwide Airlines flying the Duluth to Akron shuttle.

     When he was eighteen, Alfonso became a representative for the Russo-Latino Society due to his long admiration for the Russian-Latino culture and his Russian and Peruvian heritage (his ancestors migrated extensively). Even with his busy NJIT schedule, his family life, and his work as a pilot, he often flies to cities such as Rome, Nairobi, and Brooklyn to give talks about the history of this culture. He even met President Clinton once.

     Alfonso gained an interest in art while he was in France by spending all of his free time in the Louvre. He copied many of the paintings of the masters and did drawings of sculptures. He still does drawings on commission for wealthy clients worldwide, which helps him to support his family and put himself through college. This is fortunate because Alfonso has a large family.

     Alfonso’s parents immigrated to the United States with him. They are both centenarians (over 100 years of age), so they can no longer work and he supports them. He also has a wife and seven children. Thus he needs the extra money he makes as an artist in addition to his salary as a pilot to make the payments on their twenty-four room mansion in Upper Saddle River. Even so, Alfonso still finds time to wash the dishes and help his wife, who is the president of Stevens College, with the housework. He plays soccer with his children, four of whom are on the regional soccer team.

     However, out of all of his accomplishments, Alfonso is most proud of his work as a student at NJIT. He is triple-majoring in Architecture, Chemical Engineering and Computer Science, and has a 4.0 average. He loves NJIT and enjoys bowling, drinking beer, and studying for his classes. He takes, on average, twenty-four credits per semester so that he can finish his degree sooner and move onto his Master’s and Ph.D.

     Overall, Alfonso is a very impressive character. He has achieved all of these things by age twenty-three. It is likely that, wherever he goes and whatever he does, his career will be successful and bring honor to our beloved institution. We should all be proud to have Alfonso Giraldo Hiber-Keneti as a fellow student at NJIT.