Project Overview

Eighth grade students at Four Rivers Charter Public School in Greenfield, Massachusetts, collaborated with the Family Diversity Project to create this book as part of a study on different views on religion and religious topics.

Students interviewed twelve leaders of different faiths in the Pioneer Valley Region asking questions about life, morality and meaning. To prepare for the interviews they first worked with a professional interviewer and learned how to conduct an interview--how to make contact, how to nod, smile, and ask encouraging follow up questions. They worked to create authentic, respectful, and open-ended questions.

After transcribing their interviews word-for-word they began a long editing process creating five or six edits to create a final draft that could be easily read and was a good piece of writing.

Each interview includes a photograph and a poignant quote drawn from the interview. The book is spiral bound and is 40 pages long.