Listening to Audio Pedagogies
English via the Airwaves: Recovering 1930s English Pedagogies
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“English via the Airwaves”: Recovering 1930s Radio Pedagogies (.txt version)
[COLD OPEN]
Ben: Disclaimer: The historical voices depicted throughout this audio essay have been provided by talented voice actors and are not the actual voices of the original authors. It’s not as if we really had access to a time machine—I mean, the very idea is preposterous.
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[INTRODUCTION]
Ben: Welcome! You’re listening to “‘English via the Air Waves’: Recovering 1930s Radio Pedagogies.” I’m your co-host, Ben McCorkle, and I’m joined here on the mic by the always lovely and talented Jason Palmeri.
Jason: Hey folks.
Ben: Thanks for joining us. You know, with SoundCloud, iPhones, and open-source audio editors, it’s much easier than before for everyday people to compose with sound and distribute that stuff to a wider audience. Our writing classrooms are getting noisier, as students and teachers increasingly compose lively audio texts that blend human voices, music, sound effects, and more. My friends [bangs fist on desk], we’re living in a revolutionary moment in which audio production has been democratized in ways we’ve never seen before.
Jason: Wait a minute, wait a minute, this [censored] ain’t new! You know, English teachers have been teaching sound production since the golden age of radio. Just because new technologies have led to a resurgence of interest in writing with sound, we shouldn’t erase our history. I mean 1930s radio pedagogy has been all but forgotten in our histories of audio composition. I left it out of my book (Palmeri 2012), Cindy Selfe (2009) didn’t include it in her “Movement of Air” article. Her focus, like mine, was on college-level composition, not K–12, and that’s where the action was happening. And, that’s what this audio essay is all about! In the 1930s, we had a moment in the field in which audio writing blossomed . . . and then that moment . . . it faded. You know, if we actually look back at how English teachers responded to radio in the 1930s, we can find some pretty cool insights about audio writing pedagogy. I mean, everything we need to know about digital audio, we can learn from 1930s English teachers.
Ben: Hold on there, Jason. Radio and digital audio are related, but they’re not the same. I mean, editing is easier for sure.
Jason: Yeah, and distribution too, of course. But 1930s English teachers still did some cool stuff . . . and a few embarrassing and problematic things, too, but nevertheless we still have a lot to learn from them.
Ben: Okay, let’s go back in time.
Jason: Back in time! [time machine sound effect]
Ben: Nice. Back to the 1930s [ragtime piano music in background], back to a time when the 4Cs [Conference on College Composition and Communication] didn’t even exist. All told, we zeroed in on twenty-eight articles written during radio’s heyday from all across our great nation. Wanna hear what we found? Of course you do . . .
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[SEGMENT ONE]
Jason: For 1930s English teachers, the proliferation of radio was a humongous cultural shift—HUMONGOUS!
Ben: HUUUUGE!
Jason: To get an idea of just how huge a force radio was in the 1930s, let’s listen to Max Herzberg’s thoughts in 1935 [voice actor’s delivery accompanied by specific theme music and old recording sound effects]:
The number of hours of time each day when the radio is on in American homes, places of businesses, offices, and school must reach figures of astronomical vastness. . . . Young people, of course, have the habit even more than those of an older generation. The radio to them is as commonplace as the weather, and its marvels are as much a matter of course as those of the telephone or electric lighting or the photoplay. Many of them have the radio performing constantly during waking, and sometimes working, hours. The beat of a jazz band accompanies, agreeably for them, the study of Julius Caesar, the probing of a geometrical problem, or a translation from Victor Hugo. (545–546)
Jason: I gotta say . . . If you replace the word “radio” with the word “cell phone” in this quote [cellphone sound effect], it sounds strangely contemporary. These kids and their multitasking . . . they just can’t focus on serious books anymore.
Ben: I know, right? They literally can’t even [spring sound effect].
Jason: Anywaaay, so radio was huge for English teachers, not just because it was pervasive, but also because it was powerful. In a 1939 article, Bernice Orndorff explains this power [voice actor’s delivery accompanied by specific theme music and old recording sound effects]:
We are becoming more and more conscious that radio is a powerful agent of propaganda, more effective even than the printed word; and it is the obligation of teachers to use this instrument for education in the right direction by teaching pupils to distill the good, the beautiful, the true from the array offered them. (621)
Ben: “The good, the beautiful, the true”—Man, they just don’t write ’em like that anymore.
Jason: They just don’t. They just . . . don’t. I mean, yeah, Orndorff’s Platonism seems a little quaint today, but are we really that different? You know, I usually introduce an audio documentary assignment by having students listen to NPR podcasts that I think are more aesthetically pleasing and more robustly fact-checked than the awful propaganda of right wing talk radio. So . . . in my own way, I’m still using audio to push my own version of the “good, the beautiful” and—dare I say it—“the true.”
Ben: You know, Jason, I’ve always suspected you of being a secret Platonist.
Jason: Now, now.
Ben: Okay, okay . . . so we might still believe in teaching the good, beautiful, and true of NPR radio, but some 1930s claims about radio really do seem anachronistic.
Jason: Right? Like the claim that radio could lead to teen violence. I’m thinking especially of that article by Joseph Mersand (1938) that opens with the story of a twelve-year-old student in Toledo who killed his principal after listening to graphic radio crime dramas [theme from Dragnet plays in background].
Ben: Oh yeah! Darn those radio crime dramas!
Jason: As it went with radio in the 1930s, so it goes with video games today [video game sound effect].
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[SEGMENT TWO]
Ben: Anyway, it’s clear to us that 1930s English teachers both feared and were excited by the potential of radio. In a 1937 article, Delight Phillips sums up this ambivalence well when she writes . . .
Jason: Wait a minute [record scratch sound effect] . . . her name is Delight?
Ben: Yep.
Jason: That’s great!
Ben: It sure is. Well, here’s what Delight said [voice actor’s delivery accompanied by specific theme music and old recording sound effects]:
Radio may be a swift and steady stream, refreshing whosoever drinks from it; or it may be a brackish pool, dipped into and muddied by every passerby, offering real refreshment to none. (33)
Jason: That’s delightful!
Ben: Stop it. Just stop it.
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[SEGMENT THREE]
Jason: When we first started looking into 1930s radio pedagogy, we assumed we’d mostly find articles about critical radio appreciation.
Ben: And we did.
Jason: But, surprisingly, thirteen of the twenty-eight articles we reviewed, or nearly half, actually focused on students writing and performing their own radio scripts. In some cases, teachers such as Doris Nelson (1939) and Wanda Orton (1939) partnered with local radio stations to literally put students on the airwaves. But, even teachers who didn’t have that access hacked everyday objects to create mock radio studios in which students could perform their scripts for an audience. For example, in a 1937 article, Mildred Campbell reports [voice actor’s delivery accompanied by specific theme music and old recording sound effects]:
Roy McCullough had just made us a microphone and a gong. Perhaps they were not things of beauty, but they were sincere imitations. The base of the microphone was a stout piece of iron taken from some discarded machinery. Anchored in it was a broomstick on the end of which elaborately and securely fastened with wire was a mouthpiece fashioned from the wheel of a toy racer and supplemented with wire. Our gong was a sturdy tin top that had doubtless saved many a kettle from boiling over, the knob of which was swathed and draped in a clean white rag that the “gongster’s” hands might be hygienically protected. (754)
Ben: Mildred Campbell was clearly the MacGyver of her era.
Jason: Yes she was. I’ll never look at a tea kettle the same way again.
Ben: Yeah, it’s funny, but I actually like Campbell’s hacker ethic. She rejected the need for expensive professional equipment and instead rolled her own. We may not use broomstick mics anymore, but we still make up for lack of equipment access by hacking everyday objects.
Jason: Yeah, I mean who needs a fancy pro audio recorder when you can just whip out a cell phone? The point is making media that matters, not teaching professional tech skills.
Ben: Exactly! But let’s move past the technology they used, to really get into what motivated English teachers in the thirties to engage students in radio production; it turns out their arguments for the value of audio composing are quite similar to those we hear today. In a 1939 article, Keith Tyler explains [voice actor’s delivery accompanied by specific theme music and old recording sound effects]:
[T]he outcomes of the radio workshop are of two sorts. In the first place it gives valuable training in the consumption of radio programs. Just as the lad who can play a few tunes on the piano is a more critical appreciator of serious music, so the pupil who tries his hand at script-writing and acting is a better judge of radio programs. The second type of outcome relates directly to the field of English. Because of the strong interest in this work, it affords excellent motivation for writing and speech. . . . Students who try to catch an audience through the preparation of an effective script learn more about effective writing than they do through set assignments of themes in any ordinary composition class. (198)
Jason: Yep, I’ve definitely made similar claims in my own classes. When students have the experience of editing audio interviews, they gain a more critical literacy about how audio editing is often used for ideological ends. And, when students create audio texts for audiences beyond the classroom, they often are more engaged than they are with conventional print writing.
Ben: Absolutely. The argument that audio composing increases student engagement turns out to be very old, although teachers of the 1930s talked about students a little differently than we do today. In a 1931 article about working with students to collaboratively produce radio broadcasts, Ruth Batten explains [voice actor’s delivery accompanied by specific theme music and old recording sound effects]:
The attitude of the boys was different from that of the ordinary classroom. One little boy, stupid and lazy, who had, as far as we could tell, never written a paper of his own in his life, wrote and rewrote a short speech. We noticed that he began walking faster, and moving about as if he really contemplated getting something done. (160)
Ben: “Stupid and lazy.” Ouch!
Jason: Yeah, that’s some ableist bull[censored] right there. But, nevertheless, the trope that students become more engaged when composing new media is still with us, and underneath that trope is the implicit assumption that students are not motivated by other forms of writing. And, despite her unfortunate willingness to call students stupid, Batten did usefully position collaborative radio production as a way to democratize classrooms. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, we give you Ruth Batten (1931) [voice actor’s delivery accompanied by specific theme music and old recording sound effects]:
We believe in democracy, but we have little of it in our classrooms. We have the idea that youth is incapable of assuming any responsibility. Too many teachers are afraid that any move to relinquish their hold on the boys and girls will result in pandemonium and halt learning. On the contrary, it is amazing how stupid and so-called “bad” boys will evince real interest when placed on their own responsibility. (158)
Ben: Really? You could just call students stupid in the pages of an NCTE [National Council of Teachers of English] journal—not just once, but multiple times?
Jason: Yep, those were the good old days . . . I guess? Okay, so offensive characterizations of students aside, Batten’s assertion that we have too little democracy in our classrooms still rings true. And I totally agree with her claim that collaborative audio production can be a great way to enhance students’ agency in learning and enable them to participate actively in civic discourse.
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[SEGMENT FOUR]
Ben: Another common theme we noticed is how 1930s English teachers emphasized the unique challenges and opportunities of writing for radio . . . for the most part, they didn’t just have students write a research paper and read it out loud.
Jason: Yeah, students were writing in genres specific to radio: the audio drama, the news broadcast, the commercial.
Ben: And they showed awareness of the how writing for the time-based medium of radio is different than writing for print. In a 1939 article, Mildred Carson explains [voice actor’s delivery accompanied by specific theme music and old recording sound effects]:
We stress the fact that radio writing is different from other types of creative writing in that condensation rather than amplification by words is necessary. (480)
Jason: Yeah, as we’ve been working on this project, we keep on revising for concision. Carson was on to something there.
Ben: That she was. And in a 1933 article Jay Newlin calls attention to the challenges of conveying a narrative solely through audio media [voice actor’s delivery accompanied by specific theme music and old recording sound effects]:
Radio audiences are of necessity “ear-minded”; that is, they do not have the advantage of gesture, facial and body expression, and movements about the stage. . . . It is of primary importance, then, to see that there are no unnecessarily long sentences in the manuscript . . . and that there is no need for any expression other than vocal to make the points clear. (643)
Jason: Yeah, I think Newlin usefully points to how teaching audio writing necessarily entails critical reflections about the limitations and the affordances of audio media for storytelling.
Ben: But then again, Newlin could be . . . ummm . . . a little problematic. It wasn’t just Ruth Batten who wrote some unfortunate things back then.
Jason: Oh, right. How could we forget? Once again, ladies and gentleman, Jay Newlin (1933) [voice actor’s delivery accompanied by specific theme music and old recording sound effects]:
Having written the manuscript and carefully timed it, the next step is the selection of the speaker or speakers. In general—and this is doubly true of younger girls—girls and women should be avoided. More than half of the women and girls have voices which are simply too high pitched for the average radio microphone; and the result is an impression of affectation which wholly ruins the effect of an otherwise good speech. . . . It is, of course, unnecessary to remark that no one who has the slightest impediment of speech has any business on a radio team, for the microphone seems to take a grim delight in distorting the slightest defect. (644)
Jason: This is such ridiculous horse-[censored].
Ben: You’re right, Jason, it is ridiculous horse-[censored], but you need to take a moment and calm down.
Jason: Okay. Newlin is sexist and ableist and redonkulous, but I have to admit he was writing a long time ago. But, what really enrages me is that these attitudes have not gone away. So, as we teach audio writing, this reminds us that we need to be very careful to call attention to and actively resist the sexist, ableist, classist, and racist assumptions about language and voice that continue to influence how we engage audio media.
Ben: Preach.
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[CONCLUSION]
Ben: So, we’ve read all these old articles about radio pedagogy, some inspiring, some problematic, some a little bit of both. What have we taken away? How can this history inspire our teaching today?
Jason: I for one am inspired by how many teachers didn’t solely try to replicate traditional school genres in audio media; they had students writing in the popular radio genres to which they were already listening. You know, if I can critique Bernice Orndoff (1939) for pushing her own narrow version of the good, the beautiful, the true, then maybe I should resist my own tendency to use audio composing assignments as a trick to foist my NPR aesthetic preferences on students. I think it’s better to begin an audio composing assignment by asking students to share and analyze audio genres they find compelling . . . and then compose in those genres.
Ben: Right on. Another thing that strikes me is how many 1930s teachers approached radio production as a way of teaching collaborative writing; I’ve tended to do more individual audio composing projects in my classes, but I’m increasingly realizing how audio composing can offer great opportunities for collaboration.
Jason: Agreed. And, I also like how so many of the articles emphasized students sharing their audio texts with audiences beyond the teacher—whether on the airwaves or in a public school assembly. We need to encourage students to use social media strategically to circulate their digital audio texts to wider audiences. We need to make more space and time in our classrooms and broader institutions for public performances of student audio work.
Ben: Absolutely. I think too this history makes me more humble in my claims about how digital audio is changing everything; 1930s teachers clearly worried that the radio was going to eclipse the printed book, but it didn’t. At moments when media are relatively new, it can be tempting to overstate their impact on youth. We should be mindful of that.
Jason: And let’s be mindful too of how audio media can be used to reinforce oppressive power structures. Collaborative audio production can be used for democratic ends, but only if we engage students in critically interrogating and resisting exclusionary corporate modes of media production.
Ben: And finally, if we are to sustain audio production pedagogies in the field, we need to be making audio media texts right alongside our students.
Jason: Exactly! That’s why we composed this chapter as an audio essay.
Ben: And why we tried to compose a pedagogical history that was actually funny.
Jason: Something tells me that some of our English instructors from back in the day would not be particularly amused by our charming antics [sad trombone sting].
Ben: Touché. Okay, okay, we gotta go but we want to leave you with one more inspirational quote, this one from Mildred Carson (1939) [voice actor’s delivery accompanied by specific theme music and old recording sound effects]:
The teacher of radio writing must be on her toes and leaning forward always. (481)
Jason: It’s a little too “lean in” for me, but yeah I think she’s right. Teaching audio production requires a lot of flexibility, a lot of improv, a lot of openness to letting the students teach you.
Ben: Well, that’s about all we have for now—on behalf of Jason and myself, thanks for listening! This segment was produced with help from our ever-talented cast of voice actors:
cris cheek [as Max Herzberg]
Katie Johnson [as Ruth Batten]
Jonathan Bradshaw [as Jay Newlin]
Catherine Tetz [as Bernice Orndorff]
Katy Shay [as Delight Phillips]
Morgan Leckie [as Mildred Campbell]
John Silvestro [as Keith Tyler]
Ashley Miller [as Mildred Carson]Sound effects were downloaded from freesound.org, a collaborative database of Creative Commons licensed sound effects and music, as well as the Open Source Audio Project, a part of the Internet Archive. The piece was recorded, edited, and mixed in GarageBand 10.1.0 in Columbus, Ohio.
[Main theme music, followed by static and tuning noises and fade out]
Ben: [censored] it, we’ll do it live. [laughter]
Media assets used in this production listed in Production Notes.
