The document is a memo detailing an interview conducted by Orlo Manning with elementary school teacher Glenda Sumsion about teaching, special education, and sign language. Manning reflects on the challenges and rewards of teaching, particularly in special education, highlighting the dedication required and the emotional impact on teachers. The memo also discusses the use of sign language in education and Manning’s desire to improve his interviewing skills for future engagements.

1. Sample Memo
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DATE: October 3, 2015
TO: Professor Shirene McKay
FROM: Orlo Manning
SUBJECT: Information-Gathering Interview
I interviewed Glenda Sumsion, an elementary school teacher, to
learn about teaching
Elementary Education, Special Education, and Sign Language.
We met right after school
in her classroom where it was most convenient for her. The
large amount of work
required to teach surprised me, however, Ms. Sumsion’s love
for the students and
dedication inspired me to continue with a teaching career. I was
also motivated to
rehearse my questions more the next time I do an interview so
the interview flows better.
Elementary Education
Ms. Sumsion thought that the teachers and experiences you have
as a child have a great
impact on your desire to be a teacher later in life. Almost
everyone can remember their
favorite teacher as a child and the influence they were to them.
Teaching takes a lot of dedication. Many projects are required

2. and many classes
prepared. I never realized all of the preparation that goes into
preparing the curriculum
and making it memorable for the students.
Teachers deal with many difficult tasks each day. One of these
tasks is to keep a child’s
attention for a long period of time. Another challenge is to deal
with the few
uncooperative children. Many different discipline actions have
to be tried until one is
found to work. Despite these challenges, teaching seems very
rewarding. Ms. Sumsion
has loved children all her life. Nothing could stop her from
accomplishing her dream of
being a teacher. The ability to teach a young child is priceless
to her, and she wouldn’t
change anything.
Special Education
Special Education takes a lot more work and dedication than
teaching a regular class of
children. These children have special needs, and all of their
needs require special
attention, which sounds very difficult to me. Parents are more
involved with these
children and sometimes can be overbearing. Each of these
children has such different
needs that it seems impossible to teach them all at the same
time. The curriculum is not as
advanced and fast-paced as that of a normal class.
Communicating with these students is harder and definitely
takes a lot of patience. These
children seem harder to discipline, although I don’t think they

3. would need to be
disciplined as often. Getting attached to these children seems to
be easy because they
could grow so close to you and sometimes even become
dependent on you. To me,
teaching Special Education seems emotionally draining
compared to other classes. I takes
a very special person to teach Special Education.
Sign Language
My interviewee doesn’t teach sign language, but she uses it in
school a lot. I would think
learning how to sign would be hard for a deaf person because
they can’t speak. However,
it is just like a young child learning to speak English or any
other language. Learning
Sign languages takes time and a good example.
The language consists of signs and symbols representing words.
They have an alphabet
that can be used to spell anything if the sign for it is unknown.
There are no set signs for
names of people. Usually they are just spelled out by signing
the letters of the alphabet,
or the person can make up a sign for themselves.
Signing can be done fast or slow just like speaking fast or slow.
Tones and expressions
can also be shown in signing by the look on the signer’s face or
the body language they
use while signing. Sign language is fascinating, and I think
everyone should learn some

4. of it.
Interview Analysis
From this interview I learned a lot about a teaching career. I had
always known that
teaching requires a good deal of patience and that the monetary
rewards are not great.
The information Ms. Sumsion gave me verified that view. I
think this is something I can
live with. I was inspired by her ability to reach out to these
students, and I feel I could
contribute a lot in this area.
I think I learned even more about how to conduct an
information-gathering interview.
What surprised me most was the difficulty of conducting an
interview that flows well. I
had written my questions ahead of time, but I hadn’t really
practiced saying them out
loud. Sometimes Ms. Sumsion would answer part of one of my
later questions while I
was asking her one of my original questions. This interrupted
my logical organization of
the interview. It was all really good information, but it didn’t
seem very organized. I
ended up losing track and skipping a few of my question. Also,
it was hard to maintain
eye contact with her, listen to what she was saying, remember
her points, and get ready to
ask my next question all at the same time. I ended up just
reading my questions from the
paper. It sounded kind of stiff. Next time I conduct an interview
I will become very
familiar with all my questions so I can orchestrate the
interviewer better.