Teach Youth Radio

Greetings educators!

Are you looking for a unique way to bring an awareness of the outside world into your classroom? Would your students like to hear from other young people about issues of pressing relevance to their own lives and studies? 

Youth Radio, an award-winning producer of youth voices, has released a curriculum resource called Teach Youth Radio, which adds a fourth “R,” radio, to our traditional educational line-up of reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic. Radio produced by young people contains powerful opportunities for students to develop new literacies, build critical thinking skills, experiment with digital technologies, and express important ideas about the most pressing social and cultural issues we face today. 

Each month, Teach Youth Radio releases an on-line News Break, providing free lesson ideas and standards alignment linked to a radio story written and produced by youth. Stories featured in Teach Youth Radio series have aired on some of our nation's most influential public media outlets, and they are sure to engage your students in lively discussion and debate, just as they have for tens of millions of radio listeners. Each News Break includes:

1. How teachers can align the Youth Radio story to national standards in the classroom. 

2. Suggestions for lesson plans that connect the story's content to your classroom's themes and subject areas, including media literacy. Lesson ideas include links to additional resources and research to further inspire student inquiry.

3. Bios of the Youth Radio reporters who produced the story.

4. Youth Radio's media production techniques, offered as guides and inspiration for your students' creative media-making projects.

Teach Youth Radio content applies to a range of school subject areas, including English, social studies, and health classes. The stories also address a range of issues driving community organizing efforts and positive youth development projects taking place beyond classroom walls. Written transcripts and audio links for each Teach Youth Radio story are included in every News Break. Teach Youth Radio is a great curriculum resource regardless of whether your students are using high-end computers or pencils and paper. 

We invite teachers using Teach Youth Radio to submit their students' stories to Youth Radio's website, so the project is an exciting way to connect your students to real audiences and publishing opportunities. If you have any questions or would like us to add your contact information to our database, please send your name and email address to: Lissa Soep at lissa@youthradio.org. And join the conversation at Drop that Knowledge.

And finally, we're still migrating our Teach Youth Radio archive over from our old site, so while that process is underway, you can find more than two years' worth of monthly lesson ideas here. 

DONATE $12 OR MORE TO YOUTH RADIO, GET A YOUTH RADIO CD THANK YOU GIFT!

The CD highlights great stories from Youth Radio’s archive. This thank you gift is perfect for educators using our free on-line curriculum, or for anyone who wants to hear and share an incredible collection of youth voices on topics including mental health, identity, family, city politics, and war.

Your donations do so much to promote young people's intellectual, creative, and professional growth through media production.

Thank you.

Please mail your checks to:
Youth Radio
c/o Lissa Soep, Research Director
1701 Broadway
Oakland, CA 94612.

In order to update our database, and so we know where to send the CD, please supply the following information by way of an email to lissa@youthradio.org. Please use the subject line, “Teach Youth Radio.” Spread the word among your friends and colleagues!

1. What is your name?

2. What’s your email address?

3. What’s the name of the school/community setting where you teach?

4. What role do you play in that setting (e.g., English teacher, health advocate, professor, etc.)

5. Would you describe the community where you teach as: urban, rural, or suburban?

6. How many students does your institution serve? (if you don’t know the answer, please just write “don’t know”)

7. MAILING ADDRESS where we should send your CD!

One more thing:
Some of the lessons developed here build on work supported by an NSF grant (No. 0610272) to Youth Radio. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are ours and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.