Last year a colleague had me listen to a
segment on National Public Radio called "This I Believe". After hearing and reading some of the submissions as well as researching the history behind the segment, I was intrigued. I wanted to challenge my students to submit their own essays to NPR spending time writing rough drafts, editing, peer editing, parent editing, and then finally submitting their polished draft to the station. I thought, how powerful for one of them to have their work published nationally. How powerful for all of them to know that their voices matter.
I told the class my goals for the assignment and had them listen and read a few examples. After the class listened to some, THEY decided they would like to podcast their own essays so they could be heard on the web just like those on NPR. What an amazing idea! These kids wanted to not just complete an assignment, but to share the things they believed in with the world. They wanted to be in-charge of letting others hear what is important to them, what mattered to them.
Over the next week, students will be recording their "This I Believe" essays and we’ll add them to this post. At first there might be only a couple, but I encourage you to check back and listen to what matters to them...what is it they believe in? Feel free to leave constructive feedback for them, but please keep in mind that this is their first try as well as their teacher's.
Note: Click and drag on the scroll bar in the player below to see all the podcasts. It only displays eight at a time, but there are more if you scroll. You can't click above or below the scroll bar to move it up or down, you must click and drag on the scroll bar itself.
Update: Apparently the flash player from Odeo only displays the most recent 20 audio files in a podcast. We have 21, so Zoey's (which was the first one uploaded) was no longer showing. So we'll just add Zoey's down here by itself as a workaround for now (and to honor her for being the first one to get hers turned in!)
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