Storytelling for Podcasts

This workshop focused on non-fiction narrative shows – the documentary-style, often serialized, story-driven podcasts like Serial, Missing Richard Simmons, and Wind of Change that are known for telling expansive, immersive stories. The best ones leave listeners feeling like theyā€™ve been on a journey, and maybe even with a new perspective on the world. This workshop delved into the choices that go into structuring a narrative show that keeps listeners hitting the play button every episode. Instructor Lacy Roberts guided students through the elements of narrative. Participants looked closely at the narrative structures often seen in serialized storytelling. Lacy deconstructed great narrative shows to uncover just what makes them so good, and derive lessons participants could use in their podcasting endeavors. This class also demystified the process of creating a narrative show, discussed what kinds of stories make good narrative podcasts, and provided students with actionable next steps if they think they have a great show idea.

Talking to the Media

In this online workshop, long-time journalists Courtney Cowgill and Anne Bailey discussed practical tips for conveying a story effectively to the media. Attendees learned best ways to contact journalists, what to do when a reporter calls for an interview and what information television, radio and newspaper journalists need from to best tell a story. Through practice and feedback, instructors helped participants become more comfortable with being interviewed, both on and off camera.

Podcasting 202: Marketing Your Show

Lots of people are making amazing podcasts. But there are more than 2 million podcasts and 48 million episodes today. It can be hard to make a show stand out amongst the rest. In this course, Arielle Nissenblatt shared tips and tricks for getting a podcast out to the world. Participants discussed getting featured on Apple Podcasts, pitching shows for in-app placement, using social media to effectively market and reach potential listeners, pitching to blogs and for editorial placement, and how you to get mentioned in podcast newsletters. Arielle also covered monetization and cross-promotional efforts podcasters can use.

Instructor Arielle Nissenblatt

Heart Butte student reporters document solar project

In Heart Butte, Montana, students reported on news unfolding right in their backyard using skills they learned at a News Literacy and Digital Storytelling Workshop. Construction crews were installing a new solar array that would supply energy for the school and for community members. Students made a radio feature that included the sound of construction equipment and wind whistling across the hills surrounding the school.

Listen here:

The news literacy and digital storytelling projects were made possible by support from a Hearst Literacy Grant and the Greater Montana Foundation.

Are you interested in hosting a Montana Media Lab News Literacy and Digital storytelling workshop at your school? Contact us here.

Young Polson filmmakers investigate the Flathead Monster

Middle school students in Polson spent the week of their News Literacy and Digital Storytelling Workshop gathering stories about the Flathead Lake monster for a video story. An elder shared the Kootenai story of a lake monster creating Flathead lake.  The students visited a judge who believed he saw a monster in the lake. A museum director shared her theory that the monster was actually an ancient fish. A biologist applied his knowledge to the idea of a lake monster.

Watch the video below.

The news literacy and digital storytelling projects were made possible by support from a Hearst Literacy Grant and the Greater Montana Foundation.

Are you interested in hosting a Montana Media Lab News Literacy and Digital storytelling workshop at your school? Contact us here.

Hays-Lodgepole students report on Native language textbook

Students at Hays Lodgepole school spent a week this summer navigating fact and fiction on the internet and creating an audio story about a new Nakoda language textbook at a News Literacy and Digital Storytelling Workshop. 

Students interviewed the school principal, the illustrator of the book, and their peers. The Nakoda language was once forbidden in schools. Their story captures the joy the community felt when about the opportunity to incorporate the language into the public school curriculum.

Listen to their story below.

The news literacy and digital storytelling projects were made possible by support from a Hearst Literacy Grant and the Greater Montana Foundation.

Are you interested in hosting a Montana Media Lab News Literacy and Digital storytelling workshop at your school? Contact us here.

Box Elder students produce videos about community happenings

Box Elder High School hosted the first Montana Media Lab News Literacy and Digital Storytelling workshop of the summer.

Box Elder students made two videos about their community. One focused on the new school gardenā€”Bear Nation Garden. They got footage of the garden intern planting seedlings and pulling weeds. Their reporting took them to the local convenience store, the school cafeteria, and the Rocky Boy Health Center. Watch the video here:

Other students pursued a story about the role basketball plays in the Box Elder community. They interviewed basketball star and Box Elder graduate Brandon The Boy. Student reporters shot footage of kids playing basketball on the playground. 

A Box Elder student created a digital image for the opening page of the garden video. Another composed the music featured in the videos. 

Watch the video here:

The news literacy and digital storytelling projects were made possible by support from a Hearst Literacy Grant and the Greater Montana Foundation.

Are you interested in hosting a Montana Media Lab News Literacy and Digital storytelling workshop at your school? Contact us here.

Summer 2021 news literacy and digital storytelling workshops

In June 2021 the Montana Media Lab hit the road for a series of news literacy and digital storytelling workshops at schools in rural Montana. Teens in Box Elder, Hays-Lodgepole, Polson, and Heart Butte participated. Students at each school told stories about their communities using audio and video skills they learned. Along the way they mastered strategies for identifying disinformation and misinformation on the internet.Ā 

Student instructor Hunter Wiggins made a video about the experience. Watch here:

Students used smartphones and iPads to fact check outlandish claims in popular social media posts. They learned how to determine whether a website was trustworthy by laterally reading and checking out the sourceā€™s URL. 

Students were involved in every facet of producing digital stories. They came up with narrative arcs, decided on interview questions, operated the microphones and cameras, and edited final versions of the stories.

Students instructor Dante Filpula Ankney created this audio story about the summer program. Listen here:

By Dante Filpula Ankney

Do you know a Montana school we should visit for a workshop in the future? Contact us here.

Intro to Adobe Premiere

Montana Media Lab director and multimedia journalist Anne Bailey introduced participants to the basics of video editing in Adobe Premiere Pro.

Using provided footage, participants learned project organization, importing, cutting interviews, assembling sequences, working with b-roll, incorporating text and exporting final projects.

This intensive, online workshop gave attendees the editing skills to turn video footage, photos and audio into polished, professional videos.

Seeley-Swan High School Channels Empathy Through Storytelling

If you went to high school in the U.S. in the last few decades, chances are you read Harper Leeā€™s To Kill a Mockingbird. Maybe you donā€™t remember much of it. Or maybe it moved you so much that you still keep your copy from sophomore English on your bookshelf. Regardless, itā€™s a literary classic and reading it has become a rite of passage for most high schoolers in this country.

In April 2019, with the support of the Greater Montana Foundation, the Montana Media Lab helped 30 Seeley-Swan High Schoolers explore the theme of empathy in To Kill a Mockingbird through a totally different lensā€”their community of Seeley Lake, Mont.

It was part of a larger, ongoing Montana Media Lab initiative to help students in rural Montana schools and on Montanaā€™s Native American reservations learn digital storytelling and news literacy skills.

The stories in this piece were recorded and edited entirely by Seeley-Swan High School students in Lori Messenger’s English class. Instruction and feedback provided by Montana Media Lab instructors Beau Baker, Rosie Costain, Maxine Speier, Eli Imadali and Anne Bailey.

The audio stories the students’ produced first aired on Montana Public Radio on February 23, 2020. Listen to their stories below.

Voices from Seeley Lake

Behind the Scenes at Seeley-Swan High School