ASIA 131 Introduction to Asian Religions

Interview Assignment

Short Summary

You will conduct a short interview with a person of your choice on the topic of religion. You will design seven (7) questions yourself and before the interview write a paragraph or two about your process and thoughts for designing your seven questions and your expectations about the interview. Then you will conduct the interview, type it, and write a paragraph or two reflecting on the project.

Purpose of this Assignment

The first purpose of this assignment is to have students reflect on the kinds of questions scholars of religion ask of themselves and others when they study religion. The second purpose of this assignment is to have students hear and convey the point of view of another individual, considering their experiences of and thoughts about religion.

Assignment

The assignment will be three parts submitted in one document.

Part One will be one or two paragraphs explaining how you designed your questions and why you are asking them, and a reflection on what you expect the answers to your questions might be. In other words: what do you hope to learn from doing your interview?

All of your questions should in some way relate to the themes and ideas in our course. The best way to do this is to use our course materials, especially Ninian Smart’s “Seven Dimensions of Religion”. You may also want to use the first chapter of the textbook. Explain in this part how your questions relate to our course.

Part Two will be the actual interview, which you will transcribe (type) and put in your assignment. Before you conduct your interview make sure the person you are interviewing understands you will use their answers and submit them as part of an assignment. Ask them not to reveal anything personal.

Here are the answers to a few questions that might arise when designing and doing your interview:

Q.     Who can I interview?

A. You can interview almost any person you choose (friend, relative, classmate – any one except yourself). If you cannot find anyone to do the interview contact your instructor at least one week before the due date of the assignment and you can be paired with another student randomly.

Q.     Should I explain whom I interviewed?

A.           Do not reveal personal information about the person you interview (name, phone number, address, etc.). All you need to provide is how you know the person (family, friend, work, etc.). Briefly describe your relationship to them. Other details about the person that come out during the interview are acceptable (their religion, their place of birth, etc.) as long as they are comfortable sharing these details and the details do not reveal personal information. This should be done in Part Three (below).

Q.     How do I do the interview?

A. You can do the interview in person (face to face) or using technology. You may do the interview by telephone, Skype, Zoom, or any meeting application you like. It is preferred that interviews are not done by email or text message, if possible.

Q.     Should I record the interview?

A. If both you and the person you are interviewing are comfortable you can record the interview, but do not submit the recording with the assignment. You may use the recording to help you record the answers to your questions. If you choose to record the interview you should let the person you are interviewing know.

Q.     Which language should the interview be in?

A.           The assignment must be submitted in English, but you may do the interview in any language you like. If you do the interview in a language other than English, you must (a) translate both the questions and answers to English in Part Two and (b) include the original interview (questions and answers) in the original language at the end of the same document (this will not count towards the word count). Mistakes in capitalization, punctuation, and spelling in the answers will be penalized.

Q.     Does it matter which religion the person follows?

A.     It does not matter which religion the person follows, or if they do not follow any religion. Design your questions so that they will bring up answers regardless of who is being asked the questions.

Q.     How many questions do I ask? Can they be related to each other?

A. You will ask exactly seven questions, please number them “1” to “7”, with their answers. Your interview should explore more than one topic or theme, but some questions can be related to others. Avoid being too repetitive.

Q.     Should the interview discuss one religion in particular or religion general?

A. Your questions should be mostly about religion in general, but it is acceptable if the person you interview speaks about only one or a few particular religions. Let them speak freely.

Part Three will be your reflection after your interview has been completed. Briefly explain who your interview subject was (without revealing personal information or their name) and how the interview was conducted (over the phone, which language, etc.). Explain what you learned by conducting the interview and how you might change your questions if you did it again.

Sample Questions

Below are three sample questions. You may not use them for your interview, but they should give you a sense of what interesting interview questions related to our course might look like.

1.     What do the words “religious experience” mean to you?

2.     Can you describe a time religious art has emotionally moved you?

3.     What role do you think religion has in the 21st century?

Recommended Resources

You are strongly recommended to use our reading by Ninian Smart, “The Seven Dimensions of Religion” in designing your questions. You can also use our textbook if you find it useful.

Evaluation

Part One and Part Three combined should be 300 words (plus or minus 50 words). Part Two (the interview) should have seven questions and seven answers, there is no required minimum word count for this part. This word count does not include the works cited section (if you include one).

Your project will be graded on the quality, creativity, and depth of your writing, your clarity and precision in writing, your use of formal academic English, and your adherence to the assignment guidelines. See “Basic Expectations” below and the document “Essentials for Formal Academic Writing” on Moodle (under “Documents”).

You do not need to do extra research for this assignment aside from the assigned material. You may also use the previously assigned homework (see Course Outline or Moodle) and recommended resources (see above).

Late assignments will be penalized 10% per day late. The first “day late” begins one minute after the paper deadline, and will be assessed from the time of the assignment upload rather than any email communications.

Basic Expectations

There are some basic expectations a student should consider in preparing their paper. “Good” papers will meet all these expectations. “Excellent” papers will go beyond these basic expectations.

1.       Evidence – are you providing relevant evidence (from the assigned materials) to support your ideas? (Applies to Parts One and Three.)

2.       Analysis – are you thinking critically about the evidence provided? Are you reflecting on comparisons not directly given in the assigned materials? (Applies to Parts One and Three.)

3.       Relevance – are the pieces of information and ideas you are presenting and discussing relevant to the assignment? (Applies to Parts One and Three.)

4.       Originality – are you bringing something new to the discussion rather than listing facts or the ideas of others?

5.       Clarity – are you writing in a way that clearly demonstrates your comprehension of the material? Are you writing in a way that presents your ideas to you reader logically and with purpose?

Sources

You are required to provide citations of your assigned reading or homework in your paper. You are also only permitted to cite the texts assigned to you or your assigned homework – extra or additional research in this assignment will be ignored (or penalized if it is inappropriate). This is done to ensure students are engaging with the assigned materials that were carefully selected by the instructor. Moreover this ensures that every student has exactly the same access to the same resources.

Examples of forbidden sources include (but are not limited to) Wikipedia, Coursehero, and Prezi. Other sources not on the course outline will not be permitted. Grade penalties will be given for use of these sources, even if cited properly.

You are not permitted to cite “class notes” given by the instructor. Instead, find the evidence in the assigned homework. Citing “class notes” or “class lecture” will result in a grade penalty – use the homework as instructed.

Citations

There is no minimum or maximum number of citations required, however a good paper includes at least one citation from the homework or class resources. For this assignment you are asked to use MLA style formatting. You should have a works cited list, but you do not need an annotated bibliography. In- text citations should be done as parenthetical notes. If your paper consists primarily of quotations (cited or not) it does not fulfil the requirements of the assignment will be assessed as such.

Below are links to Columbia College’s MLA Citation Guide (8th Edition). You should review it before you start writing. These are the most important links, and this guide will answer almost any question you might have about MLA citations.

Welcome Page

How Do I Cite Books and eBooks? Videos & DVDs

Websites

In-Text Citations

Works Cited List and Sample Paper

If you are using a source from our course and the citation information (such as publisher, etc.) is not available in the document or on the relevant Moodle page please contact the instructor and the Moodle page will be updated.

Format

Your paper should include a word count and a works cited section. There is no required number of paragraphs for your paper, but good academic writing does require papers to be divided into logical paragraphs. Please only submit one document (your paper and works cited will be in one document/file). This is a short writing assignment, but it should include a brief and appropriate introduction and conclusion. Please number your seven questions and answers.

Submitting your paper

Your paper will be submitted online through Moodle. You will save your paper as a Microsoft Word document (.doc or .docx only). Handwritten or printed assignments will not be accepted. Do not submit your assignment by email. See this video prepared by the Columbia College Learning Centre about how to submit assignments on Moodle. You will find the space to submit your paper on Moodle.

Note on “pre-reading” of assignments

Please note that your instructor will not read all or part of your assignment in advance. However, if you have any questions about the assignment you are encouraged to bring such questions to office hours or send them by email.

Because of the nature of the assignment I will not be approving questions before the assignment is due, however I will clarify any aspect of the requirements if they are unclear. A significant aspect of this assignment is evaluating the kinds of questions students develop on their own.