First posted October 28, 2011; Re-posted May 29, 2013

New York is a city of characters. The Green Thumb, whose community gardens in a Brooklyn housing project shows children that eggs don’t come from eggplant. The Dictaphone Doctor, last of a dying breed. The Jury Clerk, who says ‘Good morning’ 200 times a day, and means it. The Teenage Mother. The Tabloid Photographer. The Iraq Veteran. The Walking Miracle. Throughout 2009, The Times introduced 54 such individuals in sound and images, ordinary people telling extraordinary stories—of passions and problems, relationships and routines, vocations and obsessions. — Introduction to One in 8 Million, The New York Times, 2009

The New York Time’s spectacular One in 8 Million series captured the craft of digital storytelling with such power that it brought out the storyteller in everyone, a teacher told us. “Each time I listened to one of the stories,” this ninth grade English teacher said, “I kept thinking, ‘How can I do this with my students? How can I help them tell their own community’s stories?’”

In the summer of 2009, the youth-led news bureau Y-Press decided to do just that. In a two-week summer camp called City Stories, Y-Press journalists (ages 11-18) trained campers from area (Indianapolis) community centers to pursue stories about people in their neighborhoods, using audio slideshows and writing. The Y-Pressers had been honing these skills all year, posting the results on the pages of the Indianapolis Star and on their own website. During the two-week camp, they taught fourth and fifth graders how to take photographs, collect sound, meet potential interviewees, write questions, and make editorial decisions to create compelling audio slideshows.

In the summer of 2010, Jordan Denari, a Y-Press alumna who coordinated that summer’s program (between her freshman and sophomore years in college), wrote about City Stories for WKCD.org. Her piece also included audio slideshows in which the Y-Press counselors talked about the challenges of teaching digital storytelling—and what they, themselves, had gained in the process.

This past summer, Y-Press journalists teamed up with The Indiana Partnership for Young Writers to create Digital Profiles: A Unit of Study—embedding the journalistic experiences provided by City Stories into a writing workshop curriculum. The Unit stretches across five to six weeks, allowing students the time needed to engage in the real work of writers. The suggested daily mini-lessons are not meant to be recipes for producing digital profiles, but rather a framework for teaching the qualities of good writing and the particular craft skills needed to create digitally or print profiles.

With delight, we offer here the complete Digital Profiles: A Unit of Study. The curriculum, we believe, is a powerhouse in its own right; the fact that it was co-created by youth journalists makes it all the more noteworthy.

Y-Press is a diverse, youth-driven organization that develops leadership, civic engagement and critical thinking through journalism in a variety of media, providing a forum of local and global youths’ perspectives. Y-Press began as a Children’s Express bureau in 1990. Young journalists report on issues affecting youth locally and globally. Interviews are conducted by reporters (ages 10-13) and written by editors (ages 14-18) for audiences of all ages. Outlets include, The Indianapolis Star and its website; WFYI-FM (90.1) and its website; and the Y-Press website. [Note: In December 2012, Y-Press closed its doors due to a lack of sustainable funding.]

The Indiana Partnership for Young Writers, an affiliate of Orchard School Foundation and IUPUI School of Education, provides ongoing and in-depth professional development in the teaching of reading and writing to teachers in grades K-8 at more than 90 schools in nine counties in Indiana. Founded in 1999, IPYW is committed to inquiry-based workshop teaching that sustains lifelong academic and workplace success.