Youth Media Workshop
Empowering economically diverse African-American youth from public schools to make media and social change
African American Students Learn Immersion Interviewing, videotaping for Community History Projects
WILL’s 2005-2006 Youth Media Workshop helped 12 male African-American students at Urbana High School make a pilot video about the Douglass Park area of Champaign, which for many years was the social center of the black community in Champaign-Urbana.
In addition, African-American girls at Franklin Middle School learned about “immersion” journalism to get in-depth information about the lives of African-American women in the community.
At Urbana High School
The Youth Media Workshop project at Urbana High connected African-American males to local African Americans who participated in the Douglass Community Center Drum Corps. They produced a video, And the Beat Goes On: The Spirit in the Legacy of the Douglass Center Drum Corps, which premiered at Boardman’s Art Theatre at noon, Saturday, September 23, 2006.
Urbana High social worker Grace Mitchell is working with the WILL project, a partnership with Urbana High and Dr. William Patterson of the U of I African American Cultural Center. A grant to WILL from the Illinois Humanities Council helped fund the Douglass history project.
At Franklin Middle School
University of Illinois journalism professor Leon Dash taught the seven Franklin students the immersion technique he developed, in which each girl will interview the same person seven times to find out about her life.
The students will then make a radio documentary using their research.
“We’re adapting the immersion technique for radio. We don’t know yet what the documentary will be about,” said Kimberlie Kranich of WILL AM-FM-TV. “The girls will shape the final product using the material they have gathered from their interview subjects.
The community members who are subjects of the interviews, ranging in age from 45 to 92, are Erma Bridgewater, Imani Bazzell, Ruby Hunt, Fannie Patterson and Catherine Hogue.
Serving the Community
“These projects reflect the ongoing commitment of the University of Illinois and WILL to serve underserved communities. The Youth Media Workshop exemplifies that vision,” said Patterson, project co-director. The workshop is also receiving assistance from Amy Aidman, U of I research assistant professor of communications and media studies, who is pursuing grants for the project as well as looking at how this project teaches media literacy.
During the 2004-2005 school year, the Youth Media Workshop worked with girls at Franklin Middle School to produce a documentary about the desegregation of Champaign schools.
This is the third year that the Youth Media Workshop has worked with Franklin girls, teaching them the skills to research and produce a radio program. This year’s project is being funded by a grant from the Champaign School District and by proceeds from a fundraising dinner held last spring.
Kranich said the girls interview the women about early childhood memories of school, family, church and events outside the family. Then the students will use results of the interviews to focus on defining moments in the women’s lives. “We want the students to make connections to their own lives and to events in society that are related to interview subjects’ lives,” said Kranich.
For the first time, workshop participants are using flash card digital recorders, going out into the field to record the interviews at the women’s homes.
Several of students created a short radio program about issues facing young people that aired in November on WRFU-FM in Urbana, a new community radio station. “Having the opportunity to produce that program really accelerated the pace at which they’re learning new skills,” said Kranich.
Documentaries made by the Youth Media Workshop students the two previous years focused on school desegregation in Champaign-Urbana.
For more information contact:
Kimberlie Kranich
217-244-5072 or
