FIND A STORY!

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 uses youth-produced narratives to help students build critical thinking skills, experiment with digital technologies, and express important ideas about the most pressing social and cultural issues we face today.

Youth Radio stories are written and produced by youth and have aired on some of our nation's most influential public media outlets. The stories selected for the Teach Youth Radio series are sure to engage your students in lively discussion and debate--just as they have for tens of millions of radio listeners--and their content applies to a range of school subject areas, including language arts, social science, and health. These stories also address a range of issues driving community organizing efforts and positive youth development projects taking place beyond classroom walls. Teach Youth Radio is a great curriculum resource regardless of whether your students are using high-end computers or pencils and paper.

WHAT YOU CAN FIND @ TYR:

Each story is formatted in a News Break and includes:

  1. Written transcript & audio file of the original Youth Radio story.
  2. Ideas for lesson plans - linking the story to your classroom's themes and subject areas, including the increasingly relevant area of media literacy.
  3. Toolbox Handouts - downloadable printouts to help facilitate using the News Break more easily and effectively.
  4. Standards Alignment - linking the story to your content standards through our "synthesized" standards listings.
  5. Links to further resources -connecting and extending story, as well as links to guides for your students' creative media-making projects.

HOW TO GET STARTED:

Currently, there are 3 years of archived monthly Teach Youth Radio releases available, and we will continue to build the archive with compelling youth-generated stories and lesson ideas. To find a story that works for you, there are 2 types of searches you can do:

   • MASTER: check out a skim-able list of all stories in the archive, alphabetized by title

   • STANDARDS: lead with curriculum mandates

Also, if you're primarily interested in helping your students produce media, you can jump right to our MEDIA PRODUCTION TIPS, which offer guidelines for writing commentaries, conducting interviews, producing feature stories, and more. 

Teach Youth Radio is interactive!

We encourage you to comment on stories and lessons, and also pitch your students’ stories to our website. If you have something to say or would simply like to receive updates about Teach Youth Radio, please send your name and email address to TYR@youthradio.org.

WANT MORE?

For many more hands-on resources and behind-the-scenes accounts of youth media production, check out the new book, Drop That Knowledge: Youth Radio Stories. Written by Youth Radio's Research Director and Senior Producer, Elisabeth Soep, and San Francisco State Professor Vivian Chavez, it's being touted by media experts as a "landmark contribution to our understanding of media and youth movements in the US."