HSRA

A lot of exciting things have happened at the High School for the Recording arts in St. Paul since my last entry. The students continually grow more and more comfortable with me and they open up more each visit. A few visits ago I worked one-on-one with students on how to interview people. We discussed how to come up with creative and original interview questions, and then I gave the students a few minutes to prepare questions that they could ask me for an interview. When they felt comfortable with the questions they prepared, the students completed mock-interviews with me, which we recorded so that they would be able to hear how they did afterwards. It was a great activity, that the students were really locked into and focused.

However, the thing I'm most excited about is a field trip that I have planned for this coming Monday night. Seven or eight students who are in the radio/broadcasting class are going to be coming to the Macalester Radio station during my show to observe. I got the idea for this field trip from a woman that we learned about in Ed. Psych last semester. I can't remember her name, but every year she would take children from her school, which was almost all African-American, on a tour of Historically Black Colleges. This was done in hopes of showing the students the real, tangible opportunities that they can take advantage of if they worked hard, set goals, etc. The students from HSRA are really excited for the visit and so am I. It will be very interesting for them because the radio show that they produce is all pre-recorded and edited before it airs, whereas my radio show is all live. This is a great opportunity for them to see another style of radio broadcasting. I'm going to give the students a tour of the whole studio before the show gets started, and then they'll be able to observe my whole show, from the sound-board mixing, to the live interviews, etc.

After the field trip, my plan is to have the students practice live interviews more, and plan out how they would conduct a 1-hour radio show. If everything works out, I'm going to give some of the students an hour of my 2-hour show to actually have to opportunity to host their own live-radio show. I think it will be awesome practice for them, and will continue to spark their interest in the radio and broadcasting industry.

I hope everyone else's placements are going well!