So how in the heck do you get 12 & 13 year olds to create a 15 minute podcast that are interesting, unique and a deep investigation into a topic they find value? Break it all down into little steps and make sure that you have regular peer evaluations, a professional mentor, and teacher check points.
When we started 1% of my students had ever heard a podcast, much less knew anything about setting one up. So we had to start with the basics- dissecting a podcast into its parts- introduction, what is the blurb that they will be sharing to get an audience excited about what they are talking about? Students had to sum up their subject in 3 tidy sentences, explain the question they were asking, and give their three pronged approach to answering it. These were turned in and given feedback by me. About half of my students had to do it a few times to get it ready for the next steps.
Once we had an introduction we moved on to writing the outline. I did not use anything fancy- rewrite their intro into outline format- then dissect their arguments. I talked about how useful ESPeN (Economic, Social, Political, and Environmental) are when answering any historic question. I challenged them to use three of those to answer their own questions. Then the students had to utilize at least 3 primary sources in their explanations in their podcast. We practiced posting a primary source then they had to explain it to the part of their table not able to see it. The students not able to see it had to then answer questions about the primary sources based on their student descriptions alone. It was fun...well funny for me to watch. But it taught an important lesson about using their words to paint pictures for their audiences.
Next we moved onto script writing. They were given the "impossible challenge" to speak for 15 minutes. That is a boatload of writing for a 7th grader. I gave them this document on Google Classroom to get started. I liked them using this because it let me peek at their work as we progressed through the project so I could keep an eye out on the ones that struggle or need work chunked. They wrote for a week, then that Friday they had to do a peer review. They read to a partner while the partner had to fill out a critique form, and time them. By this time most students were around the 5 minute mark...and in a panic about getting to 15 minutes.
We talked about resources that can enrich a listening experience- like interviews. Many students then networked around and found fellow students that were doing podcast on topics that intersected with their own and worked out interview arrangements. Others had connections with family members that had some kind of connection to a portion of their topics. One student reached out to a local professor to see about an interview. By this point most student podcast were closing in on 10-15 minutes. I then had students come up to do conferencing with me. I had them read their podcast script, while I timed them. Then gave them feedback and resources if they were struggling. This was great because it really made grading them later a cinch. I knew which students had the criteria, and which ones had struggles that I needed to do a deeper grade.
The best part about podcast is their public nature...however that was the biggest beat down for me. I had the students turn in all of their podcast on Google Classroom so moving and manipulating the files was not too bad...but oiy...posting them took some time. In the end the students loved showing their finished podcast off, and checking out their friends. I loved the experience and have even decided to do it again...for a spring podcast.
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