Chinese Religions Podcast Project

Last November our librarian, Lynn Lada, forwarded us teachers a link to the ‘NPR Student Podcast Challenge’. While I wasn’t quite ready to jump into this challenge, I did like the idea of having my students create a podcast. Additionally, the creation of a podcast had the potential to solve two problems I was facing. First, since the ‘World Religion’ course I teach is only a semester long, I was pressed to find time to cover Confucianism and Daoism adequately. Second, I needed something toward the end of the semester to break up our approach a bit. We had done some lectures, some videos, some short readings, some group discussions, but at that point I lacked good projects. So, inspired by the NPR contest, I created the Chinese Religions Podcast Project. How does it work? Below I’ll share the instructions that I’ll be giving to my students tomorrow and if you have any questions leave a comment!

Instructions:

Step 1 – In your cohorts, choose one person who will play the role of the podcast host/radio show interviewer. This person’s job is to compile the script, working with the others in their cohort to create the outline of their podcast episode.

Step 2 – The remaining members of the cohort should be divided into (1) experts on Confucian though and (2) experts on Daoist thought. 

Step 3 – Using the Patheos Library of World Religions, as well as the chapters on Confucianism and Daoism found in Prothero’s God Is Not One, create questions for the interviewer to ask and answers to be given by the interviewees. 

Step 4 – Together, work on and finalize your script. The order should look something like this:

Example Outline of Script:

Host:

Confucian #1:

Confucian #2:

Daoist #1:

Confucian #2:

Daoist #2:

You can go off-script. You can add commercials. Have fun! 

Step 5 – Do a sample run. Make sure you get a feel for how you’ll perform the interview. Try to keep the podcast at 8-10 minutes. You can do up to 2 minutes of commercials but must have no less than 6 minutes of actual content.

Step 6 – Record your podcast! 

Step 7 – Email/share the file with me. We’ll listen to them in class.