California Story Fund
Wartime, Our Times
KALW-FM
San Francisco
Project Director: Matthew Martin
Teens and elders to tell stories of war
This multifaceted media project will focus on stories of war as remembered by different generations in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The project will involve teens in a journalism class at San Francisco’s Burton High School; elders from various storytelling and creative expression classes at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes at San Francisco State University and the University of California, Berkeley; and reporters and producers from the project sponsor, KALW, a listener-supported community broadcast service licensed to the San Francisco Unified School District.
KALW professionals will work with Burton students to teach them skills in conducting and editing interviews. The students will subsequently interview fellow students, members of their families and individuals in their communities to collect stories related to their experience of war.
Members of the Osher Institutes will participate in the program through various storytelling and creative expression courses. The members will then visit Burton High School to read their stories of wartime to students and to discuss the work they did to create a written account of their experiences.
Humanities experts Michael Nagler, emeritus professor of languages, UC Berkeley; John Swensson, interim vice president of instruction, DeAnza College; and Toni Mirosevich, professor of creative writing, San Francisco State University will work directly with students at Burton High and the Osher Institutes to provide critical and historical perspectives.
“Through personal stories, this project will plumb questions of ethics, values and the responsibility we all have to understand the cost of war,” Project Director Matthew Martin said.
The project team will work with producers at KALW to create an hour-long radio documentary featuring the most powerful stories that emerge from the project. The documentary will be broadcast several times on KALW on Memorial Day weekend. It will also be posted on the KALW and Burton High School websites. In addition, the radio broadcast will be the focal point at an event at Burton High School to which all the participants will be invited.