Producing Podcasts as an Alternative Assessment

This session will describe a summative assessment that used the genre of a “true crime” podcast with Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold. Students modeled the journalistic style of the novel, used critical thinking and textual evidence to analyze characters, practiced the writing process through re-reading, drafting, and revision, and tapped into their own creativity and humor to increase their understanding of the novel. This session will explain the process of the podcast project, demonstrate the technology tools used, look at samples of the final product, and brainstorm other works of literature that might lend themselves to this engaging alternative to a test or essay.