Sophomores Chase Haines and Aspen Derry ask Doug "Hoot" Richards about his life.
Beth Homen interviewing wildland firefighter Taylor Hess.
UM J-School grad of the masters program and MTPR employee Beau Baker listens and helps edit interviews with Trista Wendel and Cierra Hinchey.
SEELEY LAKE – The Seeley-Swan High School English freshman and sophomore student audio documentary "Voices from Seeley Lake" aired on Montana Public Radio Sunday, Feb. 23. The documentary was a product of the Empathy Project built in collaboration with the Montana Media Lab at the UM School of Journalism and a variety of Seeley Lake community members after reading "To Kill A Mockingbird, The Screenplay" in English class last spring.
"Voices from Seeley Lake" is now available on the Montana Media Lab website, http://www.montanamedialab.com. The direct link to the audio documentary is https://soundcloud.com/user-610959798/seeley-swan-high-school-empathy-project
The intent of the Empathy Project was to explore the theme of empathy in "To Kill a Mockingbird" through the lens of audio storytelling of Seeley Lake residents. Students were encouraged to talk to their neighbors and learn more about them.
SSHS English Teacher Lori Messenger said the students chose the people in the community that represented a range of ages and life experiences, that live in the area and had a story that they felt needed to be told. The students wrote the interview questions, scheduled and recorded the interviews. Community members Taylor Hess, Douglas Alan "Hoot" Richards, Kuko Lopez, Scott Tomson, Freda Grimes, Tyler Robinson, Bonnie Philliber, Wayne Cahoon, Laura Greenwood, Claire Muller, Dr. Kat Pecora, Suzie Teafoe, Conner Mclure, Hunter Sokoloski and Jack Rich shared stories from their lives, lessons they have learned and challenges they have overcome.
Messenger said the students worked really hard transcribing the interviews and building their audio scripts, shortening them as appropriate. Crystal Lopez and Oskar Murphy also wrote a script for the opening and hosted the show.
The University of Montana Director of the Montana Media Lab in the School of Journalism Anne Bailey along with UM J-school graduates and MTPR reporters Beau Baker, Rosie Costain and Maxine Speier and UM J-school grad Eli Imadali partnered with 30 SSHS students on the digital storytelling project. They met once a week (sometimes twice) with the students in the classroom for a couple of months last spring. They taught the students how to operate the recording equipment and helped edit their scripts and polish their final audio pieces to prepare them for air. Bailey said they also offered remote feedback on their scripts via Google docs between classroom visits.
SSHS was the Montana Media Lab's second high school project last spring. They have now worked on projects with four schools and will soon be up to eight in May.
"[With the support of the Greater Montana Foundation] The goal in each school is to give students the digital storytelling skills they need to tell the stories they want to tell," wrote Bailey in an email. "We also teach news literacy skills to students in each school where we work, although we didn't have time to do that at SSHS before the end of the project.
The Empathy Project was finished at the end of the spring semester. The Montana Media Lab completed the final editing and coordinated with MTPR for the documentary special to air.
"Working with Lori Messenger and her students was an amazing experience," wrote Bailey. "Lori kept the project on track between our visits to Seeley and the students ended up putting together some really lovely profiles of people in the Seeley Lake community."
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