How Radio News-Writing and -Announcing Make for Ideal, Literacy-Focused Performance Assessment
Sunday, 7 December 2008 Clay Burell 
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"Old dogs" my mange-ridden tail. (I'm the guy with the receding hairline, inset lower left.)
I’ve been meaning to scratch this itch of a digitized reading/writing/speaking unit for any school with basic podcasting gear for a while, but have been too busy.
Busy with a new job, here in Seoul, writing and announcing radio news. I applied for it a good two months ago, and after a glacial hiring process, got the nod in mid-November. (Some of my fellow tweets know this.)1
And while it’s obvious that I enjoyed the advantage of being a foreigner when it came to breaking into radio at my age, I want to add that it didn’t hurt to have a background teaching reading, writing, and speaking skills for eight years. The old joke I loved as a new Humanities graduate – “I have a Liberal Arts degree: Will that be for here or to go?” – seems less funny now, because less true. The basic skills – reading, writing, speaking, listening, which really just mean communicating, in the end – have more value to them than we often credit.
That teaching unit I mentioned? I think about it most days as I drive home from work. In a nutshell, it’s this: invite your students to turn your content, whatever your subject matter, into five-minute “top of the hour” newscasts, applying the craft of writing for radio (great resource here), and then speaking for radio. Then have them follow up, at certain points, with “talk radio” in which they discuss and debate their “content news.” In addition to that work-flow’s simple progression from fact-mastery (identify the main ideas of each section of a chapter and distill them into a short, well-crafted précis) to higher-order thinking (analyze, synthesize, evaluate those main ideas in a natural discussion), there are two more bonuses: first, the technology slice is so simple it’s invisible (in live studio news broadcasts, you only get one chance to announce the news, so for students that means hit record, read for five minutes, then wrap by hitting “stop” and call it a day), and technology should ideally be as invisible as pen and paper; and second, the activity develops all the real-world skills that come with real journalism and broadcasting (or, as Wes Fryer puts it in regards to podcasting, “narrowcasting”).
Glancing back at my last post about Linda Darling-Hammond on performance-based assessment, this type of learning-while-doing workshop measures performance across a wide range of literacy skills: reading for main ideas, writing them with economy and accuracy (and no passive voice, mostly action verbs, citation of sources, distinctions between “alleging” and “charging,” and more), and best of all, speaking with proper pace, volume, inflection, emphasis, pitch variety, and all the other qualities radio announcers have to master to avoid losing their listeners to the next station on the dial.
It’s “real-world project-based learning” that uses the same skills as outlining, note-taking, and giving those schooly little front-of-the-classroom speeches.
The only glitch I can see is this: if you have 20 students that you put into pairs, they can’t all record at the same time in class, so they’ll have to do the actual recording outside of class. They can still have the class period as the workshop to read and write their news scripts, and practice announcing them to each other. They can also discuss and outline the questions and topics for the higher-order “talk show” piece.
Here’s the process we follow at my station. I really think it could be duplicated in an 80-minute block. At work, I do it as part of a team of two. Here it is:
7:30 to 8:30 a.m.: Read newswires (in class, this could be, say, a chapter from a history textbook), select ten articles (sections from the textbook) for the 5-minute 9:00 hourly, divide the labor, then condense those news articles – which read aloud would take two or three minutes each – into crisp little 20-to-30 second summaries of main ideas.
That means cutting about 90% of the length, without cutting the important ideas. (In other words, that means: critical reading for main ideas.)
8:30 to 8:50 a.m.: Practice reading the scripts, making last-minute adjustments where necessary. Focus on the oral skills here: breath control, pace and pause, acceleration and deceleration, words and phrases to emphasize (just consciously watch or listen to any TV or radio newscaster, and notice how different their speaking is from normal off-air speech).
8:50 to 9:00: Go upstairs to the studio, make sure your pages are in order.
9 to 9:05: Announce the news. No second chances.
Again, the reading, writing, and practicing take 80 minutes – a standard block period. The actual recording would have to be done outside of class (Skype, anyone?).
Now for the testimonial: When training for this gig, my first few attempts at speaking were disasters. Adrenaline would make me read too fast. I couldn’t control my breath, so you’d hear huge whooshing sounds as I came up for air after long sentences. My voice and hands shook. I couldn’t meet the 5-minute final out deadline. I couldn’t turn pages skillfully – you’d hear rattling paper or, worse, page one seque to page three because I’d lifted two pages instead of one, resulting in an economy article ending with a surreal sports score followed by a brain-frozen omigod pause. My vocal style would start strong, but during the underwater feeling of the third and fourth minute, I’d drop into a monotone without realizing it. And more.
But my partner’s constructive feedback and encouragement, and self-critique by listening to the performance, and imitation of newscasters online and on air, soon – within a week – led to massive improvement in both writing and speaking, by all accounts. I still have the job, so that must be the general consensus. My point here is that, done regularly, giving students time to stumble and fail, then try again until they succeed and become finally comfortable with all this literacy, will, I’m convinced, make them much stronger readers, writers, and speakers than ye olde schooly lecture-outline-take notes-summarize-give a speech drill.
It was the same with the reading and writing. My partner and I took forever, the first few days, to be able to hone in on the main ideas in all the articles we re-wrote, leading to no practice-time before going live and worse. But now, our speed has at least doubled. We’ve developed the skills, in other words, of skimming, evaluating, separating central from supporting information, and re-writing those quickly and clearly.
So, when I re-enter the classroom next year (yes, you heard that right), this performance-based workflow will be one I introduce early in the year, and sustain throughout it.
I know it’s not original, by the way, and I’m sure many teachers are doing this type of thing. I’m just struck by it because I’ve experienced it from the other (and real-world) end, as a learner.
- The station is the first all-English radio station in Korean history, and launched December 1. La-de-da. [↩]
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No. 1 — December 7th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Good luck with it all Clay. I hope it works out for you.
Jenny Lucas last blog post..The Alexandrine Dilemma – Mark Pesce’s message for Librarians.
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Clay Burell Reply:
December 9th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Jen, thanks. It always has worked out so far, though not always the way I’d have chosen. (Do you know that Taoist parable with the “Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?” refrain? It’s my gospel.)
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No. 2 — December 7th, 2008 at 10:21 pm
Enjoyed reading about your “top of the hour” newscast teaching unit. It dovetails nicely with the reasoning behind my blogging with 5th graders this year. I like to imagine that I’m laying a foundation for them to go on to higher grades and participate in classrooms with this kind of relevant project based learning.
Simplified even further for younger kids, my goal in a nutshell is to get ten-year-olds thinking about what they’re learning and synthesizing it into a coherent paragraph to share with their families online. Being able to share this information is so powerful for many reasons. Yes, we’re reinforcing communication skills, and maybe we’re even educating some of the parents in the process. At the very least we’re adding another layer to the home/school bond that research tells us is so important.
Bonnies last blog post..Reform school II
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Clay Burell Reply:
December 9th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Bonnie, that’s a great angle for young learners. You’re right, the approach is similar to what I sketch out, insofar as both require the content to somehow be used for a purpose, manipulated, “done to”.
And I love the home/school bonding. Good stuff.
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No. 3 — December 8th, 2008 at 1:34 am
Great post! This is certainly the sort of assessment I would like to be doing as a student. (Though I definitely enjoy debates too.) I actually recently wrote about a free way to record podcasts from any phone, which might be useful to some people.
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Clay Burell Reply:
December 9th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Morgante,
Hm. Radio does call-in interviews. Tweaking along those lines would be fun.
As for debating, that’s the “talk show” format idea, in a sense, though nobody’s saying nothing can be front-and-center live.
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Morgante Pell Reply:
December 9th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Yes, basing it on call-in intervirws would definitely help to improve it.
One would hope that the format would be less like “talk radio” (where it really isn’t a debate, more like a monologue with interjections) and more like a real debate, where actual opposite points are taken and both sides are given some leverage.
For examples of fake debates, see Fox News.
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Clay Burell Reply:
December 9th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Morgante,
LOL. Fox 1: “Obama is not a terrorist. He’s a socialist!”
Fox 2: “I disagree. He’s a terrorist!”
Fox 3: “He’s actually a fasco-socio-terrorist with a gay Muslim agenda to bring down fair and balanced reporting.”
Okay. Enough.
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No. 4 — December 8th, 2008 at 2:57 am
We’re slowly gearing up to do some podcasting with some of our elementary students soon. I love this comparison between a real life skill and a practical application to the classroom. This also gives me some thinking about what we’ll need to pay attention to when getting kids ready to do some good work. Glad to hear you’ll be back in the classroom again – looking forward to your writing about that.
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Clay Burell Reply:
December 9th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Hi Diane,
Yes, it’s the “podcasting WHY?” and “podcasting HOW?” that’s important, isn’t it?
And doing it in a way that has clear hooks to real-world analogs (what elementary school kid has never heard news radio?) seems a way to inculcate real-world, transferable skills while at the same time using the content of whatever class as the material. That content will be incidentally learned as the ideas are re-processed in writing and speaking.
In the real-world, nobody says, “I’m going to podcast” without knowing why, or wanting to. Classrooms have to operate on this same basis. (I know this isn’t news to you. It’s just interesting to flesh out.)
I really like Bonnie’s elementary idea above. Did you see it?
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No. 5 — December 8th, 2008 at 4:23 am
Sounds like a very doable activity especially in our social science classes. I’ll be passing the idea around to our social studies teachers and they are planning their professional growth plans for next year tied to student engagement.
Charlie A. Roys last blog post..Employee Benefits and Staff Retention
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Clay Burell Reply:
December 9th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Charlie, I agree social science classes seem the easiest fit for this.
There’s a podcast by, I want to say, the History News Network, that’s real-world. Google histor* and podcast and you should find it. Might be a good model. Though of course the imagination’s the limit as to format and approach, really.
A couple years ago, I had students do “live” reports from the Age of Exploration, and didn’t like the result. The “pretend” element made it schooly – still fun, but schooly. Today, I’d make it more straight.
I also made the groups too large, and the lengths too long. Pairs with short time limits are the corrective next time.
Nice as always, Charlie.
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No. 6 — December 8th, 2008 at 8:16 am
I have always sensed that there is an intellectual wanderlust in you which would inevitably move you from teaching into another interesting calling. I am sure you will be richer for the experience and it will help you to process the dynamics of learning relevance for all. Best wishes.
Paul Cs last blog post..Blogger Discovery
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Clay Burell Reply:
December 9th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Thanks Paul. That wanderlust will be the end of me yet. But you did see that I’m preparing to return to the classroom, yes?
Timing and wind conditions for sailing into the great freelance unknown are not favorable with the currently brewing perfect storm. Asian markets will fall hard next year, domino-wise. Unemployment will rise and budgets shrink. So the security is most important for the wife and me.
Maybe another time. As jobs go, teaching is still a good one, kvetching aside.
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No. 7 — December 8th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Wow! What a great idea Clay.
I’ll definitely consider using this next year (apparently I’m teaching English and S&E argh!)
I totally agree with Morgante Pell, this is the sort of assessment piece that i would feel interested in.
Assessing it might be tricky, but it’s definitely worth a shot. I always hated novel and poetry studies anyway.
Claire Adamss last blog post..Start with the idea and apply the tool
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Clay Burell Reply:
December 9th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
Hi Claire,
First, what’s “S&E”?
Honestly, I think English is the hardest subject to teach well. History is easier by far for me. So I hear you when you say you hate novel and poetry studies.
So how could this work in any authentic radio way for novels and poems?
Hm. NPR/This American Life type feature stories about the characters and plots of novels, treated as real, might be something. Or advice call-in shows with people talking about their “friend who has this problem”?
It’s a challenge, for sure.
And as I said to Charlie above re: real History podcasts, there are also real book-talk radio shows, culture shows where people just talk books. Maybe something as simple (almost) as that could be the way to go.
Thanks for the input. It helped me just now.
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No. 8 — December 10th, 2008 at 6:56 am
I like it! I’ve been brainstorming ideas for non-traditional assessments of science content and this idea seems like it’ll work quite well with the next content area we’re covering in class.
It’s quick, authentic, and engaging. I’ll have to sit down to flesh out details, but thanks for sending me down this road.
Bens last blog post..Artifacts #2- Chemical reaction primer
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Clay Burell Reply:
December 11th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Ben, be sure you drop a comment with links if anything comes of that. I think there’s a lot to be said for science coursework that “announces” science stuff in a way that teaches listeners. God knows I could benefit by listening to explanations of all the science I never really learned in high school.
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No. 9 — December 10th, 2008 at 9:15 am
Clay, you may have hit on something there. Students could do a radio version of a ‘book report’, doesn’t sound as risky or creative but it would be better than just another piece of writing.
S&E stands for Society and the Environment, similar to Geography and History all mashed up together with a bunch of Social Studies thrown in for good measure. My first topic for year 10 S&E next year is WWII so some radio broadcasts may well be useful assessment pieces.
Claire Adamss last blog post..Start with the idea and apply the tool
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Clay Burell Reply:
December 11th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
Claire, that’s interesting. Again, what I’m learning in radio production is that even “feature” shows are often not ad lib, but scripted. So the “book report” idea may change the writing for students in positive ways, since it will have to sound good and clear – and engaging – when read.
If you do find yourself playing with this approach in your classes, drop us a line and let us know.
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No. 10 — January 1st, 2009 at 8:51 pm
[...] applied, interviewed, interviewed again. Glacial, painful waiting (and contemporaneous with the radio job I’d also been interviewing [...]
No. 11 — January 10th, 2009 at 5:43 am
Hi this is Marissa from Mr. Bogush’s social studies. We decided to try out your idea. If you would like to see how it turns out check out the link below 9:00 to 10:00 EST on Tuesday.
http://collaborationnation.wikispaces.com/Steaming+Video+of+Todays+Class
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No. 12 — February 17th, 2009 at 8:03 pm
[...] Gilgamesh. [↩]I got sucked into the presidential campaign first, then into interviewing for a radio job and a writing job over six weeks or so after that (I got them both, thank goodness), and then into [...]