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Teach Youth Radio
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 radio to our traditional 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.
The first week of each month, Teach Youth Radio releases an on-line News Break, providing free lesson plan suggestions 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 link the story's content to your classroom's themes and subject areas.
3. Suggestions for lesson plans that explore media literacy, using the story to re-read mainstream media.
4. Bios of the Youth Radio reporters who produced the story.
5. A list of resources and further research related to the story's themes.
6. Links to Youth Radio's media production techniques 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'll be inviting 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 Dawn Williams at dawnw@uclink.berkeley.edu.
Join the conversation at Drop that Knowledge.
DONATE $12 OR MORE TO YOUTH RADIO, GET A TEACH YOUTH RADIO CD THANK YOU GIFT!
The CD contains 16 youth-produced radio stories, including pieces featured in the Teach Youth Radio series, plus bonus tracks. 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, Education 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!
Youth Radio is an award-winning producer of youth media for local and national outlets, including National Public Radio. Teach Youth Radio aims to connect Youth Radio stories to classroom and community-based curricula. We’ve developed and piloted these materials in collaboration with public school students and teachers, university professors, adolescent health experts, and community-based educators and organizers.
As you know, each month, we release a “News Break” linked to a Youth Radio story. The News Break contains links to the story’s audio and script, standards-aligned lesson plan ideas, additional research and resources, and creative media production techniques.
We’d love to hear from you at any point as you use the Teach Youth Radio materials in your classrooms, and we’re eager to check out your students’ work!
September's News Break:
What’s the New Youth Take on Presidential Politics?
What's the story?
It’s been an intense few weeks at Youth Radio! We’re still regrouping/recovering after dispatching two teams of reporters to cover both national political conventions—the Democrats in Denver, and the Republicans in St. Paul. For this month’s News Break, we’ve selected two stories—one from each convention—that explore themes with relevance beyond the dynamics of this election year. The stories center on the intersection of media and politics, and both are part of Youth Radio’s What’s the New What? series, in which youth reporters and commentators reveal emerging trends in youth culture and their ripple effects across society.
In the first story, Email is the New Wire Service, 17-year-old political junkie Nico Savidge talks about how his on-demand, customized digital news sources differ from the previous generation’s dependence on daily newspapers. In the second story, Political Conventions are the New Nightclubs, 18-year-old Ankitha Bharadwaj reports on the Republican Party’s decision this year not to offer press credentials to anyone under 18. Taken together, the stories raise questions about the inter-connected roles of the free press, digital culture, and the youth beat in U.S. presidential politics and civic life.
Check out this News Break if...
You are a high school teacher interested in new ways to inspire student writing, or if you are exploring any combination of the following issues in your classroom:
. Language Arts: Use this News Break to introduce students to key concepts related to genre and metaphor, and invite them to experiment with their own interviews and original writing about youth culture and politics.
. History and Social Studies: With this News Break, your students will learn to understand the 2008 Democratic and Republican National Conventions in a historical context, with special focus on the volatile 1968 DNC in Chicago and its aftermath for US Presidential politics and civic life. You’ll also find here activities that compare and contrast today’s digital media landscape with journalism of the past, and explore the implications of these changes for what it means to be an active citizen.
. Critical Media Literacy: National political conventions like the ones that just transpired in Denver and St. Paul provide a powerful way to compare coverage across diverse mainstream and alternative media sources. You can also use this News Break to introduce your students to journalistic ethics, responsibilities, and protections.
Check out September's News Break: What’s the New Youth Take on Presidential Politics? By Nico Savidge and Ankitha Bharadwaj
August's News Break:
One Monday
What's the story?
Rekia Jibrin teaches humanities at a San Francisco Bay Area high school for students at risk of not graduating. Earlier this year, a student from her school was shot. It's not an unfamiliar experience in areas of the US where violence can be a daily reality that doesn't just disappear when the morning bell rings.
"I have a complaint, I say in my head—a complaint about tragedy."
In this stirring first-person essay, Rekia takes you through the Monday after her school got news of the shooting. In a diary-like format, she shares her morning conversations at the copy machine, class discussions with students, and her late-night reflections on the day and what it meant for her, her students, and the state of education and society.
Check out this News Break if...
You are a high school teacher interested in new ways to inspire student writing, or if you are exploring any combination of the following issues in your classroom:
. Language Arts: Use this News Break in a lesson plan to introduce journal writing to your class.
. Health: This story can be a resource for teachers dealing with grief or loss in their curriculum.
. Economics: Find a new strategy for showing students where tax dollars go.
. Critical Media Literacy: Explore the resources in schools and the lack thereof. Also, discuss how the media deals with death.
Check out August's News Break: One Monday By Rekia Jibrin.
We hope you’re having a wonderful summer so far!
In a Teach Youth Radio tradition, instead of releasing a News Break this month, we’re taking time to plan for our future. If you have any time to share feedback or ideas on how we can make Teach Youth Radio better, please contact lissa@youthradio.org. And remember to check out our What’s the New What weekly series with NPR—a great opportunity for you and your students to share your stories! You can find out all you need to know about the series by scrolling up to our June News Break.
A heads-up for August: The News Break next month will center on Rekia Jibrin’s commentary, One Monday. Jibrin is a youth worker and doctoral student who teaches at a continuation high school in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her story aired in May on NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday:
“8:49am. It's Monday, and I walk into my school's main office. There's a line at the copy machine. It's jammed again and I'm teacher number three. "Hey Queen," says one teacher, "Did you hear what happened over the weekend? One of our kids was shot 8 times." Now she's whispering. The student was shot 8 times at close range as he waited at a bus stop. I abandon my copy project and walk into the school courtyard, re-imagining my day..."
For the complete story and standards-aligned curriculum, come see us the first week in August.
Many thanks for all!
June's News Break:
What’s the New What
What's the story?
This month on Teach Youth Radio, something a little different…
We know the school year’s coming to an end, but production in our newsroom is heating up around our NPR series we’ve just launched: What’s the New What?: Youth Radio’s Guide to Culture in Young America. A new segment airs each Thursday on NPR’s Day to Day, you can listen online at WTNW or even log onto NPR's website
What’s the New What offers a glimpse into the future of youth culture and its ripple effects across education, identity, politics, and society. Is disrespect the new chivalry? Are friends the new lovers? Is "slactivism" the new apathy? Are tech gadgets the new cheat sheets? Is killing the new fighting? Are kids the new parents? Our youth reporters point out the latest trends and let you decide.
There’s a lot that’s exciting about What’s the New What:
• It’s weekly and national
• It captures the sound and style of young people in their element
• Its themes can be serious or playful, sassy or secretive, hopeful or disturbing
• It includes radio, video, blogging, and user-generated content, and therefore…
• It’s a GREAT opportunity for you and your students to get involved!
What’s the New What invites your contributions.
There are several ways for you and your folks to participate. Check out our blog at www.whatsthenewwhat.blogspot.com and share comments. Visit WTNW and click on the "What’s Your New What" link to submit your ideas for the series—and become eligible for a $50 iTunes gift certificate if your submission wins. Connect with other What’s the New What contributors (and critics!) through Facebook and Myspace. You can also share your reactions and "New Whats" through NPR’s website. There’s a "Tell us what you think" link for each story, for example: Psychics are the New Psychologists. Who knows—you just might get to read your feedback on national radio!
Teach Youth Radio is a network of hundreds of educators around the world who’ve signed up to use youth-produced stories in their classrooms, community centers, health clinics, and other sites where young people are learning, questioning, and making meaning and media. We’d be thrilled if your students from every corner of the US and across the globe use What’s the New What to let audiences know how their world—our world—is changing. We’d also LOVE to bring the spirit of participation to our curriculum design process as well. Don’t only let us know your "New What"; share lesson ideas you and your students have come up with based on the series!
In addition to offering new ways for you to participate, the series continues Teach Youth Radio’s two-year tradition of providing fresh youth-generated content for you to integrate into your curriculum, wherever, whoever, and however you teach. Here are some lesson ideas—an abbreviated version of our usual Teach Youth Radio News Break—along with a script and audio link for the debut What’s the New What segment, Alana Germany’s Disrespect is the New Chivalry.
Check out June's News Break: Disrespect is the New Chivalry By Alana Germany.
May's News Break:
Guerra Everywhere, By Evelyn Martinez
What's the story?
In this commentary, Youth Radio LA’s Evelyn Martinez explores how her mother's memories of guerillas in El Salvador intersect with her own reality of night time gunshots, helicopters, and sirens at home in East Los Angeles.
"My mom tells me that she fled that war only to find herself in between feuding gangs and police shooting at each other in our Los Angeles neighborhood of Boyle Heights."
During the 1980's and 90's, over one million Salvadorans fled the civil war in their country and settled in the United States. Over fifty percent of those who arrived in this country decided to make Los Angeles their home. Evelyn is a product of this history. Her story provides a powerful way for educators to explore several themes, including transnational identity, the relationship between storytelling and healing, the notion of history unfolding in the present, and the ripple effects of violence for individuals, communities, and nations.
Check out this News Break if...
You are a high school teacher interested in new ways to inspire student writing, or if you are exploring any combination of the following issues in your classroom:
. Language Arts: This News Break promotes intergenerational dialogue and is a terrific curriculum opportunity for students to interview caregivers about their childhoods, to experiment with visual imagery, and to consider how to explore moral tension in their stories.
. Health: Students can reflect on the legacy of violence, the importance of telling one's story, and how the narrative process can promote personal and familial healing.
. Social Studies: Use this personal perspective as a way to engage students in study of the Salvadoran Civil War and its relationship to U.S. immigration.
. Critical Media Literacy: Evelyn’s commentary opens discussion of journalistic conventions for covering wars, in particular focusing on youth perspectives that are often overlooked.
Check out May's News Break: Guerra Everywhere
April's News Break:
The Wire, By Orlando Campbell
What's the story?
About This News Break
In this month’s News Break, we offer lesson ideas that build on a commentary Youth Radio’s Orlando Campbell produced to memorialize the hit HBO program, The Wire, which aired its final episode in spring of 2008. Are you a fan of The Wire? This News Break integrates the show’s themes into classroom work. But we’ve been careful to develop lesson ideas that do not require prior familiarity with the show. The commentator, Orlando Campbell, and other young folks at Youth Radio have convinced us that the topics explored in The Wire, as well as its distinctive storytelling style, will inspire profound discussion, and creative work among youth who do and do not watch the show, and for those who live within and outside cities like Baltimore, the show’s home base. This News Break has been co-developed with Orlando and other young people who’ve been watching The Wire season after season, and who feel deeply invested in the themes and characters the show explores.
About This Commentary
HBO’s The Wire has received critical acclaim for its realistic portrayal of urban life and uncommonly deep exploration of sociological themes, and has been named the best show on television by several magazines and newspapers. Youth Radio’s Orlando Campbell explains why the Baltimore-based drama, whose series finale aired on March 9, 2008, has relevance to his childhood in San Francisco.
"When I saw The Wire for the first time, I thought 'finally, a show about us.' HBO’s groundbreaking series brought me to a place I knew all too well. The show is about the inner workings and struggles of people in a city on the decline and how the police and government respond to these realities."
While Orlando’s commentary highlights the show’s positive impact, other viewers have raised serious concerns. Some from within Baltimore say The Wire creates a sensationalized view of the violence in their own city and glorifies the drug trade, gang involvement, and corruption for youth around the country. What do your students think about how to tell stories that involve violence and crime without demonizing whole communities of people? Take up this and other provocative questions using this News Break as a point of departure.
Check out this News Break if...
You are a high school teacher interested in new ways to inspire student writing, or if you are exploring any combination of the following issues in your classroom:
. Language Arts: Use this News Break to help your students develop multi-dimensional character profiles that defy stereotypes, compose original storylines using characters from The Wire, and frame stories that open “windows into worlds that many Americans would never dare to understand.”
. Social Studies: The News Break uses The Wire to examine how young people get classified into polarized categories like “good kids” and “bad kids,” exploring the widespread phenomenon of “tracking” in high school, and raising the question of whether popular programs like The Wire glorify violence, crime, and corruption.
. Critical Media Literacy: Building on The Wire’s critique of mainstream news media, have your students develop headlines covering key events in their own communities, and explore how point of view influences storytelling.
Check out April's News Break: The Wire
March's News Break:
Sexuality: Unacceptable, By Anne Santos
What's the story?
In this story, Youth Radio LA’s Anne Santos reflects on the life and death of middle school student Lawrence “Larry” King, who was killed by a fellow student who had tormented King for being openly gay. Anne connects the hatred King experienced to her own life and shares a personal account of a violent attack that she endured. Anne talks about a huge personal choice that she has had to make in her life in the name of safety. Anne’s story is a courageous personal narrative and example of the power of familial support. She says:
"The reason I want to talk about this after what happened to Lawrence King is that it didn’t just happen to him. The killing happened to everyone who cares about him. "
Anne contributed significantly to the editing of this News Break. In our conversations, Anne expressed hopefulness about the fact that lessons like these could be available to teachers, who can help create a safe space for young gay, lesbian, bisexual, queer, transgender, and questioning students. Anne gave her input on lessons that she would have liked to discuss when she was in high school.
Check out this News Break if...
You are a high school teacher interested in new ways to inspire student writing, or if you are exploring any combination of the following issues in your classroom:
. Language Arts: Are you discussing how to write personal narratives? Anne provides a hard-hitting example accompanied by words from her family.
. Health: Students can reflect on violence in their lives and in their communities. How do they react when loved ones get hurt?
. Social Studies: Use this newsbreak to generate discussion about the treatment of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people throughout history.
. Critical Media Literacy: Lead discussion about the ways that violence in society is portrayed in the media.
Check out March's News Break: Sexuality: Unacceptable
February's News Break:
Secret Dating, By Consuelo Cisneros
What's the story?
In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, we decided to offer a News Break about love. In this bilingual story, Youth Radio LA’s Consuelo Cisneros shares a huge secret that she has been keeping from her parents. She’s got a boyfriend. That’s a big deal, because her parents think at 17, their daughter is too young to date.
Consuelo: I asked my mom about teen relationships and she went off about sexually transmitted diseases and how we aren’t mature enough to deal with all of the consequences of sexual activity. Geez, I meant it more as a just dating. We are using the same Spanish word – “relaciones” – but it means very different things to us – to my mom it means sex, to me it’s way more innocent than that.
Consuelo’s story includes the voices of her friend, her mother, and even Mario—the boyfriend himself. She addresses the challenge of growing up with parents who have different values from her peers, and describes how she reaches the decision, finally, to tell her parents the truth.
Check out this News Break if...
You are a high school teacher interested in new ways to inspire student writing, or if you are exploring any combination of the following issues in your classroom:
. Language Arts: Use this piece to draw comparisons with novels that discuss young love, to explore the richness and limitation of language about love, and to examine the ethics of personal storytelling.
. Health: Your students can use this piece as a springboard to discuss what stops them from discussing personal emotional issues with their parents, and to compare Consuelo’s feature with other Youth Radio stories on related health topics.
. Critical Media Literacy: If your students are anything like our students, they seem endlessly to enjoy discussing similarities and differences between genders. This News Break opens up that discussion.
Check out February's News Break: Secret Dating
January's News Break:
Vanity Pounds, By Quincy Mosby
What's the story?
In this month’s News Break, Youth Radio’s Quincy Mosby talks about a huge physical transformation he’s recently undergone that has had major emotional effects. In the last year, Quincy dropped half of his body weight—a total of 145 pounds. He says he’s happy about his dramatic weight loss. But the process has been more complicated than Quincy had expected, in part because of the way his family members and friends have responded to the change.
“At first, my mother was very supportive…But it seemed the closer I got to my weight-loss goal, the more annoyed my family… became with me. ‘What can you eat?’ my mother and sister would say when I wouldn’t touch the Chinese food we ordered every Friday…”
Even though losing weight is an individual experience, eating habits are deeply social, connected to family practices, public health conditions, and media influences. And the results of any radical weight change are totally public—open to constant comment and scrutiny. Quincy may be the one switching from baggy pants to skinny jeans, but he seems to be carrying many others along for his journey, whether he wants to or not.
Check out this News Break if...
You are a high school teacher interested in new ways to inspire student writing, or if you are exploring any combination of the following issues in your classroom:
. Language Arts: Use Quincy’s commentary to inspire students to write about personal transformation and family relationships, to experiment with metaphors, to think creatively about how to open and end their first-person narratives, and to reflect on the editorial process any writer goes through in forming and reshaping an original story for a real audience.
. Health/Science: Quincy’s commentary adds personal urgency to discussions of obesity, diabetes, adolescent body image, and inequalities among U.S. communities in access to healthy food and physical education.
. Critical Media Literacy: Celebrity Fit Club… The Biggest Loser… Super models dressing up in fat suits… Reality TV shows have made public dieting a spectator sport. The media has always held major sway over what body shapes are considered beautiful, and which are scorned. This Youth Radio commentary can help your students analyze these media phenomena through the lens of Quincy’s experience and their own.
Check out January's News Break: Vanity Pounds
Click here to see: 2006 News Breaks, 2007 News Breaks
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