Two articles, a podcast and a personal essay — the winners of our latest Storytelling Contest come from three schools on three continents. Luis Eberl of Realgymnasium Rämibühl in Zurich (RGZH) has won first prize in News Decoder’s 12th Storytelling Contest for...
Winners of a worldwide competition will get cash prizes as well as coaching from News Decoder and publication on the News Decoder site. Announcing the Climate Champion Profiles storytelling competition Teenage journalists worldwide are invited to profile someone who...
News Decoder is a member of a consortium of organizations implementing a multifaceted project to engage youth with climate change issues and actions. In this article, News Decoder Adviser Aralynn Abare McMane invites high school students across the world to identify and interview someone in their community working to solve the climate crisis in a significant way, then write an article or produce a video or podcast about that person for submission to a worldwide contest.
Exercise: Find an individual in your community who is trying to fight climate change in a real way. Have students research that person by looking up relevant websites and reading any news articles that have been done or watching any videos that feature that person. Then invite the person to talk to your class and have students prepare questions they would need answered in order to write a profile of that person. Have each student write a profile and submit the best one to the The Writing’s on the Wall Climate Champions Storytelling Competition.
Kai Lengwiler of Realgymnasium Rämibühl Zürich examined Switzerland’s fight against drugs, winning News Decoder’s 11th Storytelling Contest. Winners of the 11th News Decoder Storytelling Contest A video report by a high school student in Zurich examining...
Innovative educators from Bolivia, the U.S. and Nigeria have won awards for teaching why news matters and about threats to journalists. An international jury has singled out educators in Bolivia, the U.S. and Nigeria for innovative teaching about why democratic...
A News Decoder partner has awarded top prizes to news organizations in five countries for innovative reporting on COVID-19 for kids. News organizations in Denmark, Germany, Indonesia, Singapore and the United States have won top global reporting prizes for their...
After more than a year of COVID-19 reporting, it can be hard to find a fresh perspective on the pandemic, especially for children. But the gold-medal winners of the Global Youth and News Media Prize for pandemic reporting did just that. In an interview with the prize’s director, Aralynn McMane, News Decoder Board member Nolwazi Mjwara of UNESCO learns more about the innovative strategies taken by the winning news organizations to engage children in the storytelling process and support their mental health. Winning strategies included creating interactive games, dispatching youth correspondents to cover the pandemic and hosting a virtual art exhibition.
Exercise: How might you adopt some of these reporting practices in your own classrooms? Have your students create a game for kids to learn about issues in the news in a fun, positive way.
Students at Thacher and Westover schools took five of eight awards in News Decoder’s latest Storytelling Contest, won by Christina MacCorkle. The winners of News Decoder’s Ninth Storytelling Contest, clockwise from upper left: Li Keira Yin, Christina...
My family came to the U.S. from Mexico. I used to be ashamed of our humble lifestyle. I offer these photos to show I’m now proud. This story won a third prize in News Decoder’s Ninth Storytelling Contest. Originally from Zapotitlan Palmas, a small town in...
Many students have much to say, but freeze when asked to put pen to paper. Asking them to first engage in other forms of self-reflection may make it easier to produce powerful written texts. Miriam Hernandez of Westover School demonstrates this point with her piece on growing up in the United States as a daughter of Mexican immigrants. Hernandez began with uncaptioned photographs of her family’s surroundings — a dinner table, a kitchen sink, a breeze through the front door — and later produced accompanying text — simple, direct, unvarnished — that complements the photos. Together, the pictures and text offer a candid glimpse of the author’s upbringing and how she came to terms with her heritage.
Exercise: Ask your students to take a series of photographs of life at home and to then write about what the images represent to them.
They are 8,000 miles from Myanmar, but Burmese in the U.S. are raising money in a fight for the restoration of democracy in the Asian nation. A recent protest against the military coup in Myanmar, in Indianapolis, Indiana (courtesy of Elaisa Vahnie) This story was a...
Inspired by Black Lives Matter protests, I offer a photo essay as a haunting reminder that the fight continues decades after the Civil Rights Movement. This story won a third prize in News Decoder’s Ninth Storytelling Contest. With my photography project, I...
The Black Lives Matter movement has stirred young people around the globe and raised hopes that racism and police brutality against Blacks can be curbed. For many elders, the hopes are tinged by nagging fears that a generation from now race relations will remain strained and injustices will persist. Lucy Bird, a 17-year-old student at Westover School, captures those worries in her haunting series of photos that juxtapose iconic images from the U.S. Civil Rights Movement with glimpses from BLM protests.
Exercise: Ask your students to apply their photo skills to create a visual essay that manipulates existing photographs to capture their concerns about the future.
Born in China, I decided to study in the U.S. I love my home country but harbor guilt as I become less and less Chinese over time. Photo by Markus Winkler This story was a runner-up in News Decoder’s Ninth Storytelling Contest. Artist’s Statement: I grew up in...
Growing up means eventually coming to terms with one’s upbringing. Doing so can be especially challenging for young people straddling different cultures. In a five-stanza poem, Li Keira Yin of The Thacher School explores the contradictions between the world of her Chinese grandparents and her life at a boarding school in the United States. News Decoder helps young people around the world extend their horizons and learn to appreciate different viewpoints. Some have the advantage of confronting opposing outlooks at an early age, and Yin demonstrates her maturity in reconciling the inherent antagonism between her two very distinct cultures.
Exercise: Ask each student to identify a fault line within their family and to write an essay or poem that is sympathetic to each side.