Teaching Civic Journalism: Curriculum, Counterscripts, and Third Space

• In Event: 46.085 - Roundtable Session 15
  In Roundtable Session: 46.085-23 - Teaching Civics in the Classroom and Community

Abstract

Effective civic actors must be able to keep up with a rapidly changing media landscape. This study seeks to understand how youth use the multimodal affordances of digital storytelling to produce civic journalism. We implemented a journalism curriculum in an extracurricular summer program for 15 Black, Latino, and biracial high school students in partnership with community activism non-profit. We designed the learning environment to engage students in authentic journalism, and to leverage their counter scripts to create a third space. Analysis of observational data and artifacts found that picking up on student counter scripts is both fraught with tension and fruitful in the learning environment. These findings will support the teaching of civic and journalistic education to youth.

Authors

• Gulnaz Tajoddin Saiyed, Northwestern University

• Wan Shun Eva Lam, Northwestern University

• Matthew Easterday, Northwestern University