Published Work

Bring Back the Power of the Self-Portrait

Published on JEA Digital Media

My students have all grown up in the world of the selfie...and they are good, so good at taking them — in a way that my approaching 50-year-old self can’t quite figure out.

I recently came across the article “The Un-Selfie: Taking Back the Self-Portrait” by Marie McGrory, first published in June 2014 by National Geographic.  The article has provided inspiration for my students to explore a refreshed way of looking at and capturing themselves. 

In her article, McGrory writes about how she thought of a selfie as “one of the easiest images you can take.”  Because she was seeing them every day, in their simplest form, she “almost forgot the beautiful and vulnerable place from which they originated.” She realized a critical word that she had been missing: self-portraits. 

McGrory goes on to explain the lesson that I have brought into my classroom.  “Self-portraits are not selfies. They are beautiful and revealing,” McGrory said. “They are about artists, showing themselves in the way they want to be seen—revealing something deeply personal, illustrating something they cannot explain with words.”  

At a moment in time when it is difficult/impossible for students to take pictures of each other, I gave my journalists the chance to turn their camera on themselves.  

Delia Binetti, a senior at Community High School, is tall; she is so tall, that when people first meet her, they make a comment about her height. In her UnSelfie Portrait, Binetti took on this part of her that has been a constant in her life.  Her caption is simple, short and powerful: “The words that usually spill from someone’s mouth when they first meet me relates to my height. It has always been my introduction. I used to hate it — it just seemed useless and unordinary. But, I have learned to love it. Here I am pictured from inside a dollhouse. Just a friendly giant wanting to look in:).”  The stories that accompany the photos are an essential part of the Un-Selfie Portrait. They explain the picture and the person on a deeper level, and the words are an integral part of the self-portrait.  

Grace Wang, a junior at CHS, at first felt a bit overwhelmed with the assignment: she didn’t have a fancy camera, and she couldn’t go anywhere to take pictures.  But, then it clicked.  Her new “school room” is her living room where there is a piano and school photos going all the way back. There is a photo of her as a five or six year old that always caught her eye — in part because it was in her line of sight, but she thinks is was also something more: it brought her back to such a different time.  In the photo, Wang pulled her bangs back with what she describes as  “weird little bows.”  Her mom was already at work, and her sitter didn’t say no.  When Wang looks at the picture, she would find herself wondering: What would I think of myself? Would I wish I was doing more? Something different? Would I like myself? The photo that Wang took was of her torso, holding her five or six year old self in a frame in front of her face.  

Erin Simmons, a senior at CHS, has always struggled with her acne — as many people do.  In her work, Simmons shared a self-portrait where she is not hiding it.  Simmons explained, “For years I’ve been ashamed of my acne. I’ve hidden it with makeup, band-aids, hair, everything under the sun in an attempt to look perfect and presentable in our plastic society. I’ve spent hours editing photos to hide it, to make sure it never stood out. Just this once, I wanted it to be in the spotlight, to be open and natural. I wanted to be me.”  

Eventually, I hope that we will get to the point where my journalists can help other students take their “Un-Selfie Portraits” virtually.  When they do it, they will definitely be using the advice from Annie Tritt and the phone in their hands. 

The Pandemic Changed Our Social Media Approach

Published on JEA Digital Media

Last spring, there was obviously a lot of change going on.  But, there were also things in our journalism world that stayed consistent.  Picking the Editor in Chiefs for 2020-2021 was one of those things.  

I had a lot of brilliant students applying for the top positions, and on a whim, I made one of the best decisions I’ve made in a while.  

I decided to create an Editor in Chief team for social media.  Our social media platforms had always been underutilized, poorly planned and lacked a vision for content and design. Honestly, I didn’t really think about social media content and design with the same energy and focus that I brought to our print magazine; I finally saw that as a both a problem and an opportunity.  

With everything changing, we were ready to go in a new direction. Three students enthusiastically agreed to this brand new position, and we got started on conversations with the basic premise that we had no idea what this was going to look like.  

A side note here: I’ve always struggled to find the “perfect” grading system.  More on that in another post. But, one of my turns along the way was to tell students that they needed to publish something once every other week. This understandably resulted in students jamming our social media with mediocre posts on those final deadline days.  

During this past summer, our Social Media EIC team worked to develop constants, a plan for content and a social media policy. In addition, they developed a consistent, recognizable design by being intentional about fonts, colors, photos, etc.,  I asked them to keep on working until they could see one of their posts on a feed from 10 or 20’ away and they would know that it was a post from our publication.  

I would describe our previous feed as a hot mess, but now, students have worked to make Social Media an actual platform and publication — just like website and our magazine.  

Our Social Media EICs use a spreadsheet to keep track of the content.  The consistency in coverage has been of value for my new students who get to repeat — and get really good at — the social media journalism process.  It’s also been of value for our community; it gives people a place to see people outside of their social circle and to hear stories in smaller chunks.  Posts provide brief encounters with people who you don’t know well enough to call or text, and these posts build a sense of community when so much has been lost.  

I look back now and it seems like I should have seen the importance of developing social media as a platform and a publication before.  

But, I didn’t.  So, I am sharing it with you now. 

It’s ironic that the place where students are most engaged and getting an excessive amount of information is the exact place where we were putting the least amount of energy, thought and dedication.  

Luckily, that has changed for us.  The pandemic gets partial credit because it pushed us to think differently. But, our first Social Media EIC team gets the bulk of the credit because they are the ones who made it happen. 

How Students Can Excel in Narrative Portion of JOY Portfolios: Roy Peter Clark Informs, Inspires and Plays His Favorite Beatles Song

Published on JEA Digital Media

My memory of the first time that I saw Roy Peter Clark is strangely similar to the first time that I saw Duran Duran. In both cases, the auditorium was dark, there were thousands of people standing up dancing and clapping, and there was loud music and a joyous performance on the stage. Both of these were so long ago that I can’t put a date on it beyond not being in this decade, or the one before it, or even the one before that.   

When I learned that Clark was going to be talking to journalists about narrative writing, I had to attend. And, I am so glad that I did. Every time I read something by Clark or I hear him speak, I come away with a new understanding of writing, teaching or just life in general. He is constantly earning his title of “America’s writing coach.” 

Clark has years of experience helping students write college essays, and the same writing tools apply to the narrative writing our students need to do for the narrative portion of the JOY application. 

Clark first recognized that his writing has a distinctive, individual voice when he was applying for a Rhodes scholarship.  He didn’t get the scholarship, but judges came up to him later and asked him about his story. They wanted to know more. He walked away from that experience knowing that he had a compelling writing voice.  

Clark explained to a Zoom room full of student journalists that the essays are always the weakest part of applications; the bad or mediocre ones sound exactly the same. He encouraged students to put themselves in the seat of whomever is reading their essay.  That is the audience that students need to keep in mind as they write. 

Like Clark, I want students to think about their readers. When I work with students on narratives, I always ask them, “What do you want your reader to do, think, know, feel about you?”  Their answers to those questions help students understand which stories they need to tell in their essay. Their answers to these questions need to match their essay content. I also tell them that I should be able to take 100 essays with no names, throw them into the air and be able to identify their essay from the scattered pieces of paper. Their voice must come off the page.  

One college admissions officer told Clark that only 10% of essays stand out from the others. These are the essays that have the readers saying to each other, “Hey, listen to this…”  

Clark described the lead as a flashlight that you shine down into the story.  If the lead is important in a news story it is even more important in a personal essay.  

Here is Clark’s quick list of tools: 

1. Avoid bland generalities. Be specific about who you are and what you want.

2. Read it aloud to another person to make sure it sounds like you. You want your essay to sound like you or a little better than you.

3. Find a way to stand out but not too far out. Just a story about yourself. A real life that no one else has led.

4. Get help but not too much help.

5. Before you write the essay, create a list of things that might go into it. Then, cut that list down to the three most important things.

6. Save something special for the end.

7. Pay close attention to the format. Don’t give them any reason to be turned off or distracted.

In addition to this list, Clark has more tips.  He always writes a “zero draft,” which is when he starts writing something before he thinks he knows enough. When he writes the zero draft, he usually exceeds the word count by two or even three times.  The benefit for Clark is that he gets to write really fast. He gets everything down and then he selects the best parts for his draft. 

Clark has advice about leads.  “I would not struggle over a lead,” Clark said. “Try something out. Come back later. Try it out again. We expect and we hope that the writing will be really good from the beginning, and it’s almost never good from the beginning.”

He never thinks about sentence structure at the beginning, but it is definitely part of his revision process. He shared his most significant strategy: Remember that a word of a phrase that goes at the end of a sentence or a paragraph has special power.  

“In reviewing my own work, I will find the really good or interesting name or phrase hiding in the middle of the sentence,” Clark said. “I’ve now learned to move that to the end near the period or at the end of the paragraph near the white space.” 

Clark read an essay by Samuel French, whom he coached on his college application. The essay includes story elements, creates a scene, develops characters and transports the reader from where they are sitting to that place and that time.  

Clark emphasized the connection between the reporter’s questions (who, what, where, when, why, how) and how they translate into narratives:  who becomes a character; what becomes scene/action; where becomes setting/place; when becomes chronology; why becomes motivation; how becomes how it happened. 

Good personal essays move up and down between the world of things and the idea.  “Think about this: how do you write about Covid?” Clark asked.  “Find a tiny, interesting doorway. It will help you get somewhere.”  

His final advice to students was to look around. There are dozens of stories surrounding them. 

He told students that they have to have a container where they keep their story ideas.  “Do it on your phones, in a notebook, on a sheet of paper,” Clark said as he held up a sheet of paper with his own ideas scribbled all over it.  

Growing up in a family of talkers and storytellers, Clark has always loved stories. “I feel as if I am swimming in language,” Clark said. “It’s not something that’s just inside of me, I am inside of it. It’s been a blessing. I never wound up being what I thought I wanted to be, but I always wound up in the place that I needed to be.”   

Clark ended the evening at his piano, playing his favorite Beatles song “Here Comes the Sun.”  He said he likes it because it is full of hope. And, hope is something we could all use more of right about now.

When Tragedies Happen, Teachers Are On

Published on JEADigitalMedia

The evening of Jan. 6, I spent time thinking about how to work with my journalism students the next day.  There were so many different plans that I explored, and this is what I ended up with. 

I started with a letter that I read to them, which I will excerpt here.  My default is to script things out so I don’t get lost in emotions. 

Dear Students, 

I worked last night and this morning on pulling some materials together for us today.  The thing that stuck out to me again and again is that the world needs good journalists.  I’ve been thinking about language, word choice, what is said and what isn’t said.  

As journalists, you have this monumental role of making sense of the world for people as it is unfolding.  There was no time yesterday for journalists to put in hours of research and preparation.  They were on.  And sometimes you can hear and see the humanity — the sadness, the fear — behind the words. 

So, today I am hoping that we can come together as a group of journalists and as a group of people who care about each other and about people whom we don’t even know.  You are a brilliant, compassionate group.  I believe that your words can and do make a difference in the world.  I am not putting it on you to solve the world’s problems in an article, but I am clear about this: your words are important.  

The world turns to journalists.  In front of me, I am so grateful to have a group of journalists that I can turn to in a moment like this.  

I want to share a few things with you, and then I want to open up time for discussion. There will be time to talk in small groups, large group, and/or to work on writing by yourself or with others. 

Does that sound like an ok plan?  Any other needs out there?  I want today to be meaningful.  I want today to be what you need. 

The students agreed to the plan, so we proceeded.

Over the summer, some students read “How to Be an AntiRacist” and we met to discuss it.  Students were familiar with Ibram X. Kendi and his work, so I shared one of his tweets from Jan. 6: 

Ivanka Trump was also on Twitter:

Next, we turned to look at vocabulary that was being used in the media. 

I want you to think about words, about meanings, as we go through today.  Here are some words that are coming up over and over, but the words mean different things.  As journalists, you pick the words; the words you pick hold so much power and meaning.  And, you as journalists hold power with the words that you use or don’t use.  Obviously, there can be bias in word choice. 

patriot: a person who vigorously supports their country and is prepared to defend it against enemies or detractors. Ex: "a true patriot"

white privilege: inherent advantages possessed by a white person on the basis of their race in a society characterized by racial inequality and injustice."I'll be the first to acknowledge that I do benefit from white privilege"

mob: a large crowd of people, especially one that is disorderly and intent on causing trouble or violence.  Ex: "a mob of protesters"

protesters: a person who publicly demonstrates strong objection to something; a demonstrator. Ex: "the decision was hailed by protesters against the closure as a triumph"

Trump backers: a person, institution, or country that supports someone or something, especially financially. Ex: "$3.3 million was provided by the project's backers"

rioters: one of a group of people who meet in a public place and behave in a noisy, violent, and uncontrolled way, often as a protest. Ex: Police and rioters clashed violently.

insurrection: a violent uprising against an authority or government.

siege: a military operation in which enemy forces surround a town or building, cutting off essential supplies, with the aim of compelling the surrender of those inside.

domestic terrorists: a person who commits terrorist acts in their own country against their fellow citizens. Ex: "armed domestic terrorists gained entry into the facility"  

Question: What vocabulary words best fit what happened on Jan. 6?  What words were and weren’t used in headlines?  Why do you think that is? What would you have done as a journalist?  

Next, we turned to look at headlines.

Headlines from papers around the country on Jan. 6

Capitol Stormed

Chaos at the Capital

Capitol Chaos

Protests Erupt in DC

Hostility on the Hill

Mob Incited by Trump Storms Capital (passive = subject is recipient of a verb’s action)

Trump Incites Rioters (active = subject acts upon its verb)

Questions: Which headlines best describe what happened on Jan. 6?  Which headlines are vague?  What is the effect of an active vs. passive voice?  If you were writing a headline for Jan. 6, what would it be?  What vocabulary would you use?  Why? 

We watched some video footage of the day: 

Trump’s speech For a short clip, start at 3:46:30

Van Jones

Corey Booker’s (D) War of 1812 

Mitch McConnell (R, Senate Majority Leader)

Senator Mitt Romney (R) 

We discussed the videos in small groups and then in a large group. 

Next, I had students look at the Bias Chart.  For our work, I wanted them to look at a variety of news sources from each side of the chart.  They used Today’s Front Pages from the Newseum. 

I asked students to respond to the following questions: 

• How are different publications covering this?

• What observations can you make about different sources?

• Do you see active or passive voice? When? Why?

• What observations can you make about word order and emphasis?

• Any other observations?

To my fellow teachers, our job was a tough one on Jan. 7.

I wanted my students to think about words — about their actual definitions. I wanted them to think about headlines and active and passive voice. I wanted them to be aware of the power that they hold in the words that they use or don’t use. I wanted them to think about the important role that they play as a journalist in our world.

Take Advice From the Pros on How to Best Shoot Photos Remotely

Published on JEA Digital Media

Since March, the majority of my cameras have been sitting on shelves.  We haven’t been in school since March 13, and we don’t have face-to-face contact with any of our students.  So, when Sarah Nichols shared an article at a JEA/NSPA National Convention meeting, I knew immediately that it was what my students needed.  

In the article, “A Phone, a Window and a Toaster Oven: How I Took Portraits From Miles Away,” Annie Tritt shares how she has been dealing with the pandemic as a photographer.  She uses the app PhotoTimer+, which allows her to set the number of photos, the sound it makes when taking them, and the number of seconds in between shots.  The bonus of PhotoTimer+ is that it is free. And, on top of that, it is simple to use. 

Tritt uses the following process when photographing a subject: 

1. Sets scene with subject

2. Talks about the mood she is going for and her vision.

3. Sets up her shots

4. Shoots

All of these are important, but it’s the second one that is missing the most in my student’s work. The photos have to match the content of the article.  When journalists are working with photographers, they need to be clear about the mood of the article so it can carry into the photos.  But, even journalists who are writing the story and photographing need to be reminded that these two things work in tandem. 

I love Tritt’s quote about the results of her new way of shooting photographs. “Although I hadn’t been able to use some of my camera skills — I wasn’t picking the lens, I didn’t control the lighting — something unexpected happened: The photos still felt like mine, reflecting the same emotion as if I had been on site. Even without my tools, I could still recognize myself in the work. The same person, same vision, same heart. Maybe it’s because I was still able to interact with people the way I would have in person, which is instrumental in capturing a subject’s essence.”  

This is exactly what we want our students to do.  Tritt’s advice and PhotoTimer+ make it so students can actually do the work that we want and need them to do.  This is a moment in history when our students can be at the forefront. And, they can take the pictures that capture the story in pixels. 

Knight Lab StoryMaps Opens Up New Possibilities — Here’s What One Student Did To Make Sense of Covid Data

Published on JEA Digital Media, by Tracy Anderson and Tai Tworek

In the upcoming months when our school coverage will be anything but typical, Knight Lab StoryMaps will give our students the ability to tell powerful stories and engage their community. Our students will be able to research and collect data in new ways that they haven’t always had time to focus on in the past. Our stories this year will be different, and StoryMaps will help students find another way to share their work. 

When one of my students, Tai Tworek, grappled with how to make sense of Covid-19 and race, Knight Lab StoryMaps gave her the tools that she needed to create an interactive infographic, Covid Cases By Zip Code. Tworek told the story about the undeniable link between zip codes, race and health disparities in our community.

Tworek explains her process: When news surrounding the racial health disparities in Covid-19 cases started to surface, I wanted to see if the national trend was upheld within my own community. In Washtenaw County, two zip codes have a larger population of people of color than the others. This previous school year, I had written an opinion piece about the health disparities among African American residents in my county, and I noticed that many of our community’s health problems were related to race. By presenting the data through Northwestern University’s Knight Lab StoryMaps, the connections between Covid-19 cases and race became apparent. 

I was able to use data that was updated every day from the Washtenaw County Health Department with racial demographics per zip code from the U.S. Census Bureau. I organized the StoryMaps by zip code, as exemplified by the health department. On each individual slide per zip code, I highlighted the number of reported cases as of a specified date, along with the suspected cases; I also included the percentages of that zip codes population who identified as Black or African American. On each slide, the StoryMaps allowed me to drop a pin on the zipcode to show where in Washtenaw County it is located. StoryMaps allowed me to show a trend consistent with that of national data: areas with a higher proportion of Black or African American residents reported higher cases of Covid-19.

Link to Tai’s StoryMap (Also above)

How To Create A StoryMap [Video Tutorial]

Published on JEA Digital Media, by Tracy Anderson and Tai Tworek

The Knight Lab by Northwestern University is an online resource page for different displays of digital storytelling. The lab has developed multiple platforms, one of which includes the StoryMaps feature. This feature allows users to pick multiple locations and map them together to visually tell a story. It can be paired with short paragraphs of text. This video will be a how-to guide to using StoryMaps.

Click Here For StoryMap Video Tutorial

Mike Tirico Has Advice for Student Journalists

Published on JEA Digital Media

Mike Tirico loves talking about interviewing.  I’ve interviewed him a handful of times, and this time it’s recorded (thank you Zoom).  What I love about talking to Tirico is that he openly shares his best practices with students and gives students skills they can immediately use in their reporting. 

As Tirico figures it, 65% of his life has been telling stories and interviewing folks. “I love it every day,” he said. “The job still wakes me up with a great passion to learn and get better at it.”  Tirico has emphasized this in every interview I have done with him: he is always trying to learn more and to get better. In the past, when a room full of student journalists hear him talk about this, they realize in that moment that there isn’t an apex where you are trying to get to as a journalist. Journalism is a continuous — and powerful — process of learning and improving.

Tirico grew up in New York City, and he knew from a young age that he wanted to be a sports broadcaster.  His journey as a journalist started at Syracuse and went on to include working at
ESPN, ABC and NBC.  In short, he’s covered football, basketball, golf, tennis, hockey and world cup soccer.  He is currently the lead primetime host of the Olympics on NBC and lead play-by-play for Notre Dame Football on NBC. 

Tirico’s resume is impressive. 

What is even more impressive is that he cares about our student journalists, and he knows that our students are journalism’s future.  

Tirico believes that “Who, What, Where, When, Why and How” still matter; they are at the core of all that we do as journalists. But there is more than these fundamental questions. 

In this interview, Tirico created a new acronym on the spot: PLC. Tirico explained that being a journalist is all about preparation, listening and curiosity. Tirico has explained to me before how he uses stacks and stacks of notecards to record information about the athletes he covers; he is always striving to know more about who they are as people, which is why he is so good as a reporter.  

“Try to triangulate the person,” Tirico said. “Can you tell me something about the person? What makes them a person, not just a line on the roster?” Instead of just knowing that someone on the football team is a certain number, height, weight, from this town, etc., he finds out what they are studying. What do they want to do after college? He wants to be able to talk about them as more than just the athlete on the field.  

His advice is not just for sports; it applies to features as well. He encourages students to think about the people whom they are interviewing. 

“What makes so and so tick?  Do they like coffee?  Do they like tea? There’s always something unique about each person,” Tirico said. “When you can dig long enough and deep enough to find that, it’s rewarding to us as journalists and hopefully it makes our viewers, listeners, readers more excited about what we are going to do next.”  

In addition, Tirico emphasizes that the most important trait in an interview is being a great listener. 

“If I am doing a long interview, I come with the first question and the third question, but I hope that my second question comes off the first answer,” Tirico said. “It forces me to be in the mode of listening.”  When his second question comes off the first answer, the person being interviewed knows that they are being listened to. This approach makes all of the difference for everything that follows in the interview.  

The third part of his acronym is curiosity. “If you are curious about anything then you can be someone who can interview anyone on any topic and make it appealing to the person who really cares,” Tirico said.  “If you can find what’s going to be a magnet to someone who has an interest in this sport, then [you] can have a better interview. So, I need to have a little curiosity created even if it’s not there naturally.” 

On television, Tirico makes interviewing look easy.  But, after the interviews are done, Tirico replays interviews in his head and can see places where he wishes he would have asked a different question or asked a question in a different way. He is always reflecting on his work, and he is always learning. 

“The great thing about interviewing is that it is such an inexact science,” Tirico said. He reminds us though that the more you interview, the more comfortable you feel and the better you get.  

In Tirico’s direct address to young journalists he offers encouragement.  “You sign up to cover history as it is happening,” Tirico said. “Do not get pushed off the trail. The world will always need journalists to document what is going on. There’s never been a more important time for journalists, and there’s never been a better time for journalists.” 

Getting your students to hear how podcasts are built…and giving them a place to start their own

Published on JEA Digital Media, by Tracy Anderson, Jennifer Guerra and Rachel Ishikawa

It’s hard to start a student podcast. We are hoping this makes it a little easier.  

Our hope is that student publications across the country will take on issues like race, fear, phones, identity, etc., in their own communities. Maybe these topics can be starting places for your students.  Or, maybe these lead your kids in some new directions that are most relevant in their communities. Or, maybe your kids want to do something totally different. All of it is good. It’s about the voices, the stories and the connections.  

The questions below are content related and they are focused on opening up conversations.  But, if your goal is to have your students create podcasts, we’d also recommend having them listen to the podcast and take it apart so they can see how it was built. Have students make observations about the writing and articulate how it is different than print writing; identify the ‘value proposition’ for each episode, which lets listeners know what the episode is about; identify the focus of each story, and talk about why it’s important; talk about the background sounds (ambi) you hear; discuss how music is used throughout the episode, and/or what role does music play in the episode; talk about how quotes (tape) are used in the podcast.

KTD Episode 1: Race

Release date: 06/17/2020 

This Week’s Show: Race

In this episode (summary): Three weeks after police killed George Floyd, teens have been out on the streets to protest police brutality and systemic racism. And for a lot of us, especially for Black teens, this is a resounding cry fighting for our right to live and to live in peace. Some people may wonder: why? What is motivating teens to step out, to speak up, and to demand change? To try and answer that, we move out of the streets and into the home for a moment and ask:  What kinds of conversations are teens having with their families about race right now? 

Suggested discussion prompts: 

-What conversations are you having with your family about race?

-What differences do you notice among the conversations? What similarities? 

-What do you think about the narrator putting herself in the story? 

-There’s a lot of debate over “objectivity” in journalism. What role do you think journalists should play, particularly when it comes to issues of race in America? 

Link(s):

Apple Podcasts link: 
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/race/id1514884296?i=1000478320196

Michigan Radio buildout: https://www.michiganradio.org/post/kids-these-days-what-conversations-are-you-having-your-family-about-race

KTD Episode 2: Fear

Release date: 06/24/2020 

This Week’s Show: Fear

In this episode (summary): We’ve grown up in an age of fear — from school shooters, to the climate crisis, to COVID-19. In this episode, we look at how that has shaped our lives.

Suggested discussion prompts: 

-Do you agree with the premise that Generation Z has grown in an “age of fear”? Explain.

-What are the lockdown drills like at your school, and how do you feel about them? 

-Climate change and COVID-19 share a push-and-pull between individual freedoms (to wear or not wear a mask; to drive or not drive a Hummer) and shared responsibility (flatten the curve; stop global warming). What are some other examples of individualism vs collectivism? 

Link(s):

Apple Podcasts link: 
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fear/id1514884296?i=1000479410907

Michigan Radio buildout: https://www.michiganradio.org/post/kids-these-days-how-has-fear-shaped-our-lives

KTD Episode 6: Phones

Release date: 07/22/2020 

This Week’s Show: Phones

In this episode (summary): We use our phones all the time, but we never talk about how we use them. This episode, we look at the unspoken rules and expectations of social media, and how they can impact our relationships. 

Suggested discussion prompts: 

-How does location tracking, and other types of surveillance affect your behavior?

-Several people wouldn’t agree to tape an interview for this episode (Lana’s boyfriend; parents). As a journalist, you’ll come across people who do not want to talk to you. How do you deal with that, and what kinds of workarounds might you use? 

-What is the difference between “off the record” and “on background”? 

– When is it ethically ok to grant anonymity to a source? 

Link(s):

Apple Podcasts link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/phones/id1514884296?i=1000485704519

Michigan Radio buildout:
https://www.michiganradio.org/post/kids-these-days-lets-talk-about-teens-and-phones

Join JEA Digital Media’s Tracy Anderson and Two Radio Professionals Sept. 28 to Talk About How You Can Make a Difference In Your Community with Podcasts

Published on JEA Digital Media

Without a doubt, now is the time to explore podcasts.  Advisers and students are invited for a live event with Jennifer Guerra, Peabody Award-winning producer, and Rachel Ishikawa, producer of Kids These Days.  

Rachel and Jen will share experiences from their years of professional work and expertise.  They will share tips for how to create podcasts that can make a difference in your communities. They will talk about interviewing (in-person and remote), story structure, equipment, and more. There will be time for Q&A, so come with your questions! 

All you need to do to access the event live is sign up here. This is so we don’t post a Zoom link publicly and get unwanted visitors. If you fill out the form, we will get you added to the list and send you the zoom link around 5 p.m. ETD on Sept. 28. 

They have experience creating a podcast during the pandemic, and you can more information about that here. There will be a follow-up event on Sept. 30  geared towards parents and educators. 

As Executive Producer, Jennifer and her Michigan Radio team received the Peabody Award for their 2018 podcast, Believed, sharing the stories of survivors of disgraced Olympic doctor and sexual predator Larry Nassar. Jen and Rachel’s most recent project Kids These Days was created in collaboration with Community High School in Ann Arbor, Michigan. 

Article about our project: https://current.org/2020/07/student-produced-podcast-from-michigan-radio-aims-to-provide-nuanced-perspectives-on-generation-z/

Issues & Ale on Sept. 30 talking with experts about teen issues: https://www.michiganradio.org/post/issues-ale-home-kids-these-days-1

Jen’s podcast Believed: https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510326/believed

Kids These Days: https://www.npr.org/podcasts/867450285/kids-these-days

Jennifer’s bio: 

Jennifer Guerra is the Executive Producer of Special Projects at Michigan Radio.  She develops new podcasts for the station, most recently Kids These Days, a youth-led podcast with students from Community High School in Ann Arbor. She was also the Executive Producer of Michigan Radio’s Peabody award-winning podcast Believed. Jennifer was a 2018 Knight-Wallace journalism fellow at the University of Michigan, and has been with Michigan Radio since 2005, where she started as an on-air host and arts reporter. She covered poverty and education in metro Detroit for five years as part of the station’s State of Opportunity team. The Detroit chapter of the Society for Professional Journalists named her “Young Journalist of the Year” in 2008, and her stories have been featured on NPR, Marketplace and Studio 360. Jennifer got her start in radio as a producer at WFUV in the Bronx.

Rachel’s bio: 

Rachel Ishikawa joined Michigan Radio in 2020 as a podcast producer. She produced Kids These Days, a youth-led podcast with students from Community High School in Ann Arbor.

Prior to Michigan Radio, Rachel spent the past three years producing audio in Philadelphia. In addition to her work on NPR Music and WXPN’s The Gospel Roots of Rock and Soul, she was the Social Practice Lab Artist-in-Residence at Asian Arts Initiative. There she collaborated with young people to develop an online audio sequencer that sampled sounds from the rapidly redeveloping Chinatown North Neighborhood. She’s produced shows like the Opt-in and the Healing Justice Podcast, and her radio features range from topics of skin stigmas to bioacoustics.
For more information about the event, feel free to email me.

What creating a podcast during the shutdown taught me

Published on JEA Digital Media

On March 11, rumors started flying that school was going to close by the end of the week. One of my classes had been planning a podcast in collaboration with Michigan Radio all year, and our plan was to start recording on Friday, March 13. I grew up watching “Friday the 13th” movies, so I should have known better than to ever plan anything on that date. 

We had the name of our podcast, our logo, our tagline, and the episode topics, but we had no — as in zero — interviews recorded. We quickly found a supply closet and a teacher’s office (I work in an old school with no recording studio) where we would record as many interviews as we could before the closure. We spent three days in high-speed mode doing interviews. March 13 was indeed our last day, yet it was also just the beginning of our recording process. Our podcast had a drop deadline of May 20. It was a real deadline. 

We actually got it done, but getting there took some doing. I’ve always believed in the power of journalism, but during the pandemic it became more; it was a lifeline that kept us all engaged and moving forward. Where some of my other classes were built on individual assignments and papers, our podcast class had a clear, collective purpose and a deadline. We were making something, and students stepped up to work overtime. As unideal as it sounds, creating a podcast during this time was, unexpectedly, exactly what we needed. 

We had three recording kit bags that I would drive to and from my students. We had a routine: students would leave the kits outside, I would pick them up, clean them in my “sanitizing station” in the back of my car and bring them to the next student. I’ve never known where all of my students lived before, and driving around to their homes and waving, talking, smiling, and missing them from afar gave us much-needed, real-life contact. When I first took my advising job, the former adviser, who retired after 35 years of teaching, told me that he always did home visits to every single student, every single semester. Twenty-four years later, in the midst of the pandemic, I finally understood why he did them. 

When I think back to past podcasts that my students have done, I realize that I was missing a teaching opportunity. I didn’t have the expertise nor the tools that I needed to guide them. There were critical pieces that were missing: planning, reporting, storytelling, writing, revision and editing. They were missing because I didn’t know how to teach them, and sometimes I didn’t even know that all of those pieces were an essential part of podcasting.

As I am planning for next year, podcasting is definitely part of it. I know that without this podcast experience working with Jennifer Guerra and Rachel Ishikawa, I wouldn’t have an idea about where to start. Jennifer was the Executive Producer of Michigan Radio’s Peabody Award-winning podcast, Believed, and a 2018 Knight-Wallace journalism fellow at the University of Michigan. Rachel helped produce WXPN and NPR Music’s award-winning The Gospel Roots of Soul in 2018-2019, and worked closely with youth in Philadelphia as the Social Practice Lab Artist-in-Residence at Asian Arts Initiative from 2016-2017. The two collaborated with us for the year, and I had the chance to learn alongside my students. 

Jen and Rachel’s advice can give all of us the solid foundation that we need to get our students started with creating and building their own podcasts. We are sharing some key info with you: Tips on Audio Storytelling, Reporting Kits and discussion questions to get your students thinking about podcasts and engaging with issues. 

At a time when we are missing human contact and hearing each other’s voices, podcasts can connect us. It’s the right time to dive in. 

Tips on Audio Storytelling

Published on JEA Digital Media, by Tracy Anderson, Jennifer Guerra and Rachel Ishikawa

Pick a Treatment

Figuring out how you want to tell your story early on is crucial because it can determine what kind of tape you need. The ways you can tell an audio story are limitless, but here are some tried and true treatments for audio storytelling:

• Acts and Trax – This is your standard radio feature. It includes “acts” (your tape) and tracks (your narration).

• Non-narrated – This kind of story has zero narration from the reporter, which means you need a lot of descriptive tape that can clearly lay out a story. Pursuing a non-narrated audio story means that you will need to work closely with the people you’re interviewing to get clear, descriptive tape. You may often need to ask them to restate sentences to be more clear.

• Two-way – Just a straightforward interview between the reporter and their interviewee(s). Think Fresh Air.

• Audio Diary – The reporter records the ins and outs of their life. This includes reflections, interviews, ambient sounds of their environment, and active scenes.

• Audio Essay – An audio essay isn’t like your typical personal essay or oped for print. The essay needs to sound like how the speaker talks. Audio essays are a great opportunity to play around with sound design.

Collect sounds, not only interviews

People often say that radio is a very visual medium. You want people to really “see” your story by recording ambient noise: dogs barking, doors slamming, the radio being turned on, the sound of the blender. Use the microphone the same way you would a movie camera: get close up, medium, and wide shots.

Depending on the story’s treatment, you may also want to create active scenes in your piece. Doing a story about the pressures of being a young athlete? Take us to a basketball game!

Writing for radio

Radio is as much about writing as it is about recording superb audio. Writing a script or essay for radio is pretty different from writing for print. Here are some key considerations when writing for radio:

• Shorter sentences are better.

• Write as you speak.

• Keep language simple.

• When you’re writing your script, say it out loud!

• Set the scene – Tell us where you are, who you’re talking to, what’s happening. Be the listener’s eyes and ears.

Beyond Snaps: How High School Journalists Can Use Snapchat as a Tool to Improve Reporting

Published on JEA Digital Media, by Tracy Anderson and Hannah Freeland

I’ve never seen the value of Snapchat in my journalism classroom…until now.  I’ve always thought of Snapchat as a selfie-indulgent platform. However, in one short class period at the beginning of January,  I realized — with help from my students — that it can be a valuable tool for students to use for research, seeing life around the world on micro levels, for generating story ideas and connecting with sources. 

So, before you write it off completely, consider how you can bring it into your classroom to help cover everything from the basketball game in your school’s gym on a Friday night to Coronavirus halfway around the world.  

To see some of what I learned and get some ideas, click on this link.