Back to Lesson Plans

Interview a Star!

Materials

• Optional: Interview Fact Sheet
• Optional: Research materials.

This is a pretty simple speaking lesson where each student picks a famous person and then the other students interview him/her as that person. Can be done in class or assign kids to do research for homework first.

Each student should chose a famous person they plan to act as. Alternatively you can assign roles so this lesson can be linked to a recent reading about famous people, or it can be linked to current events where students chose people in the news. Students can also chose or be assigned ficitonal characters so it can be linked directly to a novel, film or almost any activity you've done in class.

If the characters are well-known to everyone (ideally they should be), you can run the activity in class. Otherwise you might have students chose the famous person for homework and do research. Or you can bring source materials to class and do a lesson on researching. In any case, students should be prepared to be interviewed as this person. To keep the class focused or make sure they do some research, you can use the Interview Fact Sheet. In any case, students should be ready to be interviewed as this character so they should know something about them and be prepared to improvise, guess or make up any answers on the spot!

Now, you can do this two ways:1) Put the students in pairs. Each student prepares 5 questions for the other student and then they take turns interviewing each other. 2) Do a mock talk-show in class. In turn, each student goes to the front of the class, announces who they are acting as, and the whole class can interview them.

You have to be a little careful to make sure that people don't ask insulting or slanderous questions like, "President Bush, why are you so ugly?" Or, "Angelina Jolie, will you sleep with me?" Other than that, this is a very fun lesson and students get very creative explaininng away scandals or making up histories of their characters. It's especially fun when the interviewer knows more about the person than the actor does. Encourage students to be creative!

Thanks to EnglishBaby! for reminding me of this great idea.

Back to Lesson Plans