Secret Dating- A Teach Youth Radio News Break

“I asked my mom about teen relationships and she went off about sexually transmitted diseases and how we aren’t mature enough to deal with all of the consequences of sexual activity. Geez, I meant it more as a just dating. We are using the same Spanish word – “relaciones” – but it means very different things to us – to my mom it means sex, to me it’s way more innocent than that.” —Consuelo Cisneros

This month’s Teach Youth Radio News Break is inspired by Valentine’s Day. In this bilingual story, Youth Radio LA’s Consuelo Cisneros shares a huge secret that she has been keeping from her parents. She’s got a boyfriend. That’s a big deal, because her parents think at 17, their daughter is too young to date. Featuring the voices of her friend, her mother, and even Mario—the boyfriend himself. Consuelo addresses the challenge of growing up with parents who have different values from her peers, and describes how she reaches the decision, finally, to tell her parents the truth.

This News Break has been designed for high school teachers interested in new ways to inspire student writing, or those who are exploring any combination of the following issues in the classroom:

• Language Arts: Use this piece to draw comparisons with novels that discuss young love, to explore the richness and limitation of language about love, and to examine the ethics of personal storytelling.
• Health: Your students can use this piece as a springboard to discuss what stops them from discussing personal emotional issues with their parents, and to compare Consuelo’s feature with other Youth Radio stories on related health topics.
• Critical Media Literacy: If your students are anything like our students, they seem endlessly to enjoy discussing similarities and differences between genders. This News Break opens up that discussion.

Get the News Break here.

Teach Youth Radio

Hey teachers!

Are you ready to Drop That Knowledge?

Youth Radio has free curriculum aids that can help you frame issues through the lens of youth produced content. Let the student journalists of Youth Radio help you reach your students.

Every month Teach Youth Radio offers up a new “News Break” based on one of our recent reports or commentaries. Each News Break features:

1. How teachers can align the Youth Radio story to National Standards in the classroom.
2. Suggestions for lesson plans that link the story’s content to your classroom’s themes and subject areas.
3. Suggestions for lesson plans that explore media literacy, using the story to re-read mainstream media.
4. Bios of the Youth Radio reporters who produced the story.
5. A list of resources and further research related to the story’s themes.
6. Links to Youth Radio’s media production techniques as guides and inspiration for your students’ creative media-making projects.

This month’s News Break “Secret Dating” has an emphasis on Language Arts, Health, and Critical Media Literacy.

Learn more about Teach Youth Radio.