About the Diary Day and Student Interview Process

The Diary Day and Student Interview Process was developed by the Annenberg Institute to examine how students experience their learning opportunities both in and outside of school.

The Diary Day methodology was first developed to investigate the way in which in-school arts experiences often lead students to use their free time in constructive and imaginative ways.

The methodology was designed by the Annenberg Institute for School Reform with funding from the Ford Foundation, the Packard Foundation School Arts Program, and a grant from the U.S. Department of Education to Dallas Arts Partners.

Young people need and deserve learning opportunities both in and outside school to learn well, grow as active and thoughtful citizens, and gain the skills they need to succeed in a rapidly changing, knowledge-driven economy.

Learning outside of the school day provides vital opportunities to:

• practice fundamental skills such as literacy and mathematics
  
  
• apply those skills to the motivating and complex situations presented by real-world settings
  
  
• discover how to present oneself to new peers and adults
  
  
• learn how to pursue an interest or talent

Recent research (Gordon, Bridglall & Meroe 2004; HFRP 2005) suggests that the achievement gap is rooted equally in learning opportunities available to students in and out of school. Yet we know surprisingly little about the distribution of these opportunities – especially those that occur outside the school day.

To help communities address this issue, Dennie Palmer Wolf, director of Opportunity and Accountability at the Annenberg Institute, has developed the Diary Day and Student Interview Process. In this process, interested adults (researchers, teachers, youth workers, etc.) interview students about a day in their lives, beginning when they wake up and ending when they go to sleep. Students narrate both their formal and informal activities, including thoughts and conversations that were important to them during the day. They also evaluate each activity for its worth to them as a learner.

A trained interviewer listens and asks questions as students talk, drawing out how they made choices, what they are hoping to gain, and what opportunities they are still seeking. If the interviews are collected from a wide range of students, this process is a powerful tool for examining patterns of student learning and the distribution of learning opportunities across schools, neighborhoods, and groups of students. The entire process depends upon the engagement and deep reflection of the students themselves.

Source Article
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"Expanding Education Opportunities in Birmingham: A New Kind of Urban Community," by Dennie Palmer Wolf. Voices in Urban Education 7. (Spring 2005)



Instructions for Diary Day and Student Interview Tool

This process is most instructive when students are interviewed who vary across race and ethnicity, gender, and class. It is also helpful to include interviews with individuals who vary across other dimensions such as:

• students with experience across the full range of high schools in the district (different types of schools with different profiles of performance over time)
  
  
• recent immigrants, students who arrived in this country early in their lives, and native-born students
  
  
• students who vary in their current levels of achievement, as measured by grades and test scores as well as other forms of excellence (e.g., arts, debate, athletics, community service)
  
  
• students who have dropped out at different points in high school for different reasons and who have followed varying paths since dropping out
  
  
• students with a range of family and work responsibilities

How are the interviews conducted?

The interviews are done with individual students and last approximately 30 minutes. With elementary students, the interviewer and the student make some notes together about their activities on the prior day. Middle and high school students are provided blank Diary Day forms ahead of time in order to make their own notes prior to talking with the interviewer. The interviewer uses the following prompts:

Prompt 1
Tell me the story of your learning up until now. Where have you gone to school? What kind of learning have you done outside of school? (The interviewer will need to supply some examples: from your family, at your church (or other place of worship), music lessons, sports camp, etc.)

Prompt 2
Let's look at what you did yesterday. Describe your major activities. Include what you were doing and thinking, and who was with you. If you were doing something different from – or in addition to – what you were meant to be doing, include both activities (for instance, if you were reading while taking care of your little brother, or doing your math homework while riding the bus).

Rate each of these activities for what it did for you as a learner:

0 – This activity was a waste of my time. I didn't learn or change at all.

1 – This was a routine activity that was important and necessary to do. It may have involved practicing or polishing skills or learning that I already had.

2 – This activity gave me new skills and understandings.

3 – This activity made a big difference to what I can do or understand. It changed how I see myself as a learner or a contributor to my community.

Prompt 3
Are there classes or activities that you wish you had either at school or elsewhere? What are these? Why haven't you been able to do them? Why do you want them?