The mid-term consists of a fictional interview. It must be 6-8 pages long and is due at the end of Week 7 on February 20. You have all day to turn it in. Early submissions are okay, late submissions are subject to point deductions. The format of the interview is flexible, but you must draw on the mandatory readings and lectures to place dialogues and characters in context. Further instructions on how to write this assignment will be available as the due date approaches. The fictional interview is worth 32 points of the final grade. Please use double-spaced and Times New Roman, font size 12. Fictional Interview Guidelines The key to a good assignment is to create engaging characters, place them in credible contexts, and write meaningful dialogues based on the required readings. Here are some pointers to help you build an effective fictional interview. Read! Use the required readings as your main reference. You may conduct some additional research, but the interview must be based primarily on the secondary and primary sources we have examined in class. You must show a good grasp of the materials—this will be our primary concern when grading the assignment. Very important. You must use at least two direct quotations from one or more of the required primary sources, and at least one direct quotation from one of the secondary sources. Knowing where to place these with the greatest effectiveness is part of the challenge of the assignment. Just throwing the citations into the interview at random is not going to do it. Although the format encourages your creativity, this is ultimately an academic piece of writing. Use quotation marks and provide proper references when adding the citations (use the Chicago Style citation system). If you are drawing closely on a secondary source, you must also add a proper reference. A rule of thumb to learn when a reference is needed when paraphrasing (as opposed to directly quoting) a text: basic facts and dates usually do not merit a reference, but if you are summarizing other people's ideas, arguments, or opinions in your own words, you must include one. In the other words, treat quotations and paraphrasing as you would in a conventional essay. Do not use AI to produce your assignment. Follow standard university honesty policies. Check the syllabus for useful resources to learn how to cite academic works. Choose your characters wisely. The goal is to create realistic and convincing characters. You may choose to use a well-known historical figure (Porfirio Díaz, Francisco I. Madero, Zapata, etc.), but your characters can also be imagined (for instance, a muleteer joining Orozco in northern Mexico, a teacher supporting magonsita ideas, a federal soldier deserting after the battle of Zacatecas). Don’t forget to consider gender, race/ethnicity, and class differences!!! Characters can be fictional or real, collective or individual, famous or completely unknown. However, in all cases you must take into account actual social, economic, cultural, and political backgrounds (gender, class, ethnicity, etc.). Place the interview in time. The interview must be set roughly between 1870 and 1920. There is some flexibility though. You can have your characters reminiscing about the revolution years after the conflict ended. Still, the core of the dialogue must focus on the decades we have actually examined in class. Likewise, you may just want to focus on just one day or one year, or just a few years. That is fine, as long as the interview shows a good grasp the themes discussed in the required readings and examined in the lectures. Context is crucial. Place your story and characters in an immediate context. Check some of the primary sources in the syllabus for inspiration. Think about daily routines and everyday contingencies (food, shelter, transportation, illness, work, etc.). Is your setting urban or rural? Imagine specific places, built environments, and localities: plantations, mines, homes, public squares, battlefields, schools, markets, mountains, lowlands, etc. Be sensitive to regional differences and keep the big picture in mind. Use the secondary sources to connect the interview to the overall context in which your character or characters are set. Use your imagination. Be creative. You are not expected to be 100% accurate. You might get the name of one place, historical figure, or date wrong. No big deal, that is, as long as the interview shows that you have made a genuine effort to consider the historical context. Being creative is not the same as being arbitrary. Same as above, but put a little differently. Your interview does not have to be perfect, but it does have to be plausible and credible. The specifics are mostly up to you, but the general background must be based on actual historical events, processes, and contexts. This is fiction, not fantasy. Don’t do too much, and don’t do too little. Focus on one or two ideas. Don’t try to cover too much ground. You are not expected to know everything about the period. At the same time, the interview should be more than just a series of questions and answers. Filling the page with small talk won’t work. Describing the circumstances surrounding the interview (the landscape, the time of day, your character's mood, the special circumstances that led to the encounter, etc.) adds life and color to the text. What is expected of you? In a nutshell, interview must show that you have a good grasp of the readings and the themes we have explored so far. Creating characters, placing them in credible contexts, and having them talk about relevant issues discussed in class requires a minimum of research and reading. You are not expected to produce a flawless and completely accurate piece of historical fiction. You are, however, expected to do so in an honest, informed, and thoughtful manner.
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