Your American Life

This special seminar is designed for students interested in creating stories for radio, podcast, and other sound media. Students will learn both the core principles of telling strong stories, whatever the medium, and the strategies of telling entertaining, persuasive stories for the ear. Just like film or the novel, sonic stories  offer a fascinating mix of constraints and opportunities, and you’ll learn how to  invite listeners into an experience or insight that combines theories, facts and  feelings into a single space of empathy.  

For example: interviewing someone you don’t know, capturing a bit of their story (maybe how they got to a stressed place you found them in), editing it down to essential moments and reflections, then writing a script that helps cradle and craft the narrative to tell their story in sound that also reflects on the larger situation they find themselves trying to navigate. You’ve made a listener find something in common with someone they wouldn’t have heard from or about. 

This is a hybrid class—equal parts classic seminar and creative workshop— students will create stories from start to finish and learn skills from pitching and  interviewing to writing, editing, and digital production. Students will work in small groups to document places through the stories that inhabit them. 

In the seminar part of the course we will examine a variety of narrative structures and identify the main craft elements. We’ll read, listen, and watch a variety of short  pieces and discuss some of the their strategies and architectures. Our main focus  will be the produced or scored audio story—analyzing a variety of pieces from radio programs and podcasts like Love and Radio, Snap Judgment, RadioLab, Radio Diaries, and of course, This American Life.  

We will also read and discuss some critical media theories and histories to approach the ecology of sound with academic understanding. 

In the workshop portion you will build audio stories, exploring techniques like blending dramatization and reflection, creating a strong narrative arc, and managing  elements such as characterization, music, narration, effects, dialogue and especially the voice itself.  

Recommended for students interested in creative nonfiction, documentary, film,  and even sound art. No prior experience necessary.

Instructors: Jake Warga, Jonah Willihnganz.