This program's whole language impact is multi-dimensional. It affects reading, writing, speaking, and listening in a variety of processes. Learning and teaching strategies are enhanced as students and teachers walk through classic and contemporary literature. Together they explore the news and issues of the world around them. In a new classroom simulation students speak, negotiate, and interview each other as they seek solutions to community problems.
Students exceed comprehension of literature and are compelled to true engagement.
Having mastered the simple rules of radio dramatic writing through fairy tale adaptations, they must address the short story's structure, disassemble it, add dialogue elements for expository passages and narration, and reassemble the work. The analysis and synthesis required obliges the student to become something of an authority on the work selected for adaptation. In the recording process that follows, the student must further consider the characterization of one or more antagonists to adequately convey the characters' motivations in the performance of the script. The same can be said of the novel, modern drama, poetry, and to a lesser extent, Shakespeare. Broadcast journalism, employing a brief, straightforward, conversational writing style for the ear, offers teachers a venue for instruction in primary research concepts, an opportunity for non-threatening speaking opportunities, and a means for insuring that students discover many of their own careless writing mistakes long before they appear in a final draft.