Audio Story Rough Draft

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Once again my inspiration for this project came in the form of Misty guiding me (she’s the real MVP).

For the last 4 years I’ve been an AVID elective teacher. If you don’t know what AVID is, it’s a program that started in California awhile back that had the intent to close the achievement gap and getting underrepresented students the skills that they needed to be successful in high school and college. Being an AVID elective teacher basically means that I teach a class on how to be responsible (how do you keep your materials organized, how to manage your time, how to ask proper questions, how to interact with people in acceptable manner, etc.). We also spend some time learning transferable skills, like how to format different writing structures so that they can apply to multiple forms of writing. As an adult you’re probably thinking “that’s fantastic! So many kids need those skills!”. I whole heartedly agree, otherwise I wouldn’t consider teaching this type of class. However, our dilemma comes in convincing kids that this is an important class that they should take. Let’s face it, very few 11 year-olds want to take a class about how to be responsible and grown up, especially when they can take a class instead that allows them to launch rockets and create catapults, and I totally don’t blame them. This means that every year, when class registration rolls around, we always run into issues.

Not only is my AVID class up against basic kid nature to avoid responsibility in favor of fun, but AVID is CONSTANTLY misrepresented by our counselors!

They tell the kids that:

  1. AVID is a study hall.
  2. AVID is a class that goes on field trips.
  3. All the AVID teacher does is help you with work from your other classes. If you’re stuck on an assignment, they will spend the class telling you how to solve it.

This is such a misrepresentation of what we do in AVID! It forces me to have battles in my classroom with apathetic students because they got into a class that was falsely sold to them. Nothing kills the progress of an AVID class faster than a kid that just doesn’t want to be there. Seriously, one kid can put such a damper on the entire system and experience for the rest of the kids. This is something that I battle with the counselors on every year, and it constantly falls on deaf ears.

I’ve asked in the past if I could go represent AVID when we register our students so I can say what we actually do in AVID, we take current AVID kids so they can share their stories, etc. The district has always agreed that those are good ideas, but so far they are unwilling to implement any of them.

Which brings us to where I am now. I have been out of work for a week; quarantined to my house for health issues not related to COVID. 8am on Wednesday morning I am wallowing in my lack of time, expressing to Misty how desperately I need a topic for my rough draft that I must complete in approximately 48 hours. Misty made the connection that this audio story can bridge our AVID registration issue gap; that if I can’t be there in person and we can’t take AVID kids, then I can use the audio story to tell our tale. Running off that spark of genius, I had 50 free minutes to brainstorm with my AVID co-coordinator Jenevive (since this would benefit her too) and we organized what we needed to get this project done. We came up with a list of 6 questions we wanted to ask the AVID kids, and then picked 5 fantastic AVID students, ones that we’ve been working with for the last 2-3 years, that we wanted to interview. We gave the kids less than 24 hours to get their ideas together about their AVID experience and what they want others to know about AVID. Then the following day we pulled them from their 5th period class and sat at a table as a small AVID family to have a discussion about what we wanted other people to know about AVID.

I ended up with a good 20-30 minutes worth of audio (which I posted each individual question interview on SoundCloud). To start with the rough draft I chose the questions that I felt like had the most relevance to what we wanted kids registering to know. Then I just listened to the clips repeatedly and tried to pick out the pieces I liked. I tried not to cut any answers, just cut down on the “umm” and “like” the kids kept repeating, while cutting down the long stretches of silence.

Currently I have created:

I don’t know how engaging it will be to a group of 5th graders, but I feel like it’s at least a good start for the message we want to get across.

7 thoughts on “Audio Story Rough Draft”

  1. Hi Kacee –

    What a fun and inspiring audio to listen to! You definitely hit the jackpot using this format as a way to reach 11-year old’s by hearing their peers praise the class.

    There were several things I liked about this audio. Right at the beginning having all the kids introduce themselves helped the listener get more engaged in the story. The absolute best-quote from the interview was: “Yea – Organization! My room is clean!” I laughed out loud! Finally, you ended your story with the girl saying, “AVID is there for everyone!” BINGO!

    This is such an inspiring audio listening to all these young voices tell what they have learned from AVID. If you added a music track in the background, some motivational or inspirational music, it would really make this audio dynamic. You could try looking at AShamaluevMusic in SoundCloud. There are so many options you could try. I think this would elevate this audio and appeal to your younger audience.

    You also have room to trim your audio so that it meets the 3- minute length guideline. Perhaps at the end where you are talking with the kids a bit?

    You put a smile on my face this morning, Kacee. Thanks! Good luck with gaining more enrollment in this valuable course for your kids.

    Cheers!

    Cyndi

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    • Thanks Cyndi!

      I’m a little concerned that adding music in the background will take focus away from the story, but I am going to try it and see if I can find something that works.

      Thanks for the feedback!

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  2. Hi Kacee –

    This was great – I really loved how you utilized program participants to tell the story of AVID. Using this story format can have such a positive impact on others who are aren’t sure or don’t understand something. I especially liked the boy toward the end who used to always talk about how much he “hated AVID” — it was wonderful to hear him speak highly of the program now, after giving it a chance and learning to appreciate all it offers.

    When I think about ways to improve it, maybe adding a soft ambient audio file as background (nothing too loud or distracting, of course). Another thing you could do is create a conclusion where all of the students say something together, but really, I kind of like what you have now with the student saying “AVID is there for everyone.” So maybe not change that.

    You’ll have to find something to cut to get the time down, you’ll probably have to take out a couple of the longer answers or times when answer’s were very similar to one another student said.

    I really enjoyed your story — such a great topic, too.

    Take care
    Mikal

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  3. Hi Kacee,
    Wow! What an incredible audio story! Not only is your topic heart warming and engaging, but it’s so well structured and composed. Additionally, I loved reading your blog post and learning about the work you do with AVID and the important roll it plays in kids’ lives. It was thoughtful, well-written, and sincere. I’m curious to know a little more about the “technical” side of things. What device did you use to record the kids? And was the “razor” tool your primary method of editing all the audio that you collected?
    You did a great job of seamlessly merging the audio segments together, it honestly sounds like the story was completed in just one 3:28 recording. I love all the different voices and opinions from the kids, their answers are so youthfully unrehearsed and genuine. The subtle noises and movement captured in the background are a great “candid” addition to the audio. It gives the story additional emotional dimension, and helps you connect, personally, with their voices.
    In regards to feedback and suggestions, there were a couple minor things I noticed. The subtle variation in volume amongst the kids’ voices is enjoyable, and helps differentiate between their answers. However, there were a couple sections of audio when the volume of your voice might be a bit too loud for the overall tone.
    The introduction and ending of your story are really solid and engaging. The questions you ask the kids are thought provoking and perfectly open-ended. Particularly at the end where the last kid finishes the story with, “AVID is there for everybody!”. The only small suggestion I have is that it might be more informative, to the listener, if the question asking “how would you describe AVID to someone else” was closer to the beginning of the story, maybe right after the introductions from the kids?
    Overall, I was totally blown away by your audio story. The amount of time and effort you put into it is very obvious. I’m looking forward to listening to your final story, and I really hope that you’re able to use this project in your school to help educate the students AND counselors!

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    • Thanks Valerie!

      You bring up a good point, I didn’t talk about the technical aspect as all. I’ll make sure to include that in my final post. I also like the idea of playing around with the order of the questions, so I’m going to give that a shot too.

      Thanks for the feedback!

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  4. Based upon the feedback from my peers, I know that I have a few really great pieces in my audio story that I need to keep. I definitely need to keep the part where the kids introduce themselves, the sections where I state what the question is, Umar’s two responses (since they seem to make people laugh), and the ending where Leidy talks about how AVID is for everyone. As for what I need to change, I need to do a better job of cutting stuff that is repeated. I think two or three kids said that AVID helps you learn about college and high school. On one hand that’s good because they are getting the point across, but on the other I’m over the time limit so some could be cut. I also think that I need to go back into the other clips that I recorded and see if there are any other good responses that I should try to include. I know for one of the questions M talked about how AVID has helped her build her self-confidence by learning how to ask questions; I think that could be a really powerful addition to the story and there are probably a few other responses that I’m overlooking.

    I noticed that I need to work on a few transitions (the clip where Umar says that AVID has helped him be organized because his room is clean and a section where Austin is talking about how AVID has helped him as a person). The cuts of those audio don’t flow as good as they should so I just need to take more time to make sure they are cut at the right place. It was also suggested that I play around with the order of the questions, so I am going to experiment with that a bit. Lastly, it was suggested that I insert some kind of music in the background. I am afraid that doing this will take the focus away from the story, but it is something that I am going to play around with and see if I can find song that fits. At the very least I could just put it at the beginning and end and a fade in and out.

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