PODCAST PROJECT

THE PROCESS OF A PODCAST

During Week 6 and 7 of Writing 39A, I got together with some classmates and created a podcast discussing the topic of Disney Princesses and the evolution of their role in gender expectations and social norms. This project helped my communication and cooperation skills, which are course objectives, as my groupmates and I had to work through many different tasks and problems that we experienced throughout the project.

Pre-Production: Preparation and Planning

1. Improve your written literacy, digital literacy, and overall communication skills across several media.

Script building encouraged me and my groupmates to condense our ideas and thoughts into one whole script, we came together as a team to focus on a particular topic.

2.

3. Practice collaboration and learn how to be an effective collaborator.

Creating a plan before the actual creation and production process helped create an effective way to tackle the project as a whole.

Develop habits for engaged reading

Weeks prior to even creating the podcast project, the analysis of the Haas and Trapdeo text initiated my development of a general idea for the correlation between Disney Princesses and gender norms. In order to understand the text and fully develop a complete opinion on the topic, I had to engage myself in the text, dissecting the author's structure and explanations.

Production: Creating the Podcast and Microsite

For the podcast product as a whole, I provided pictures for the visual aspects of the microsite. Each picture represents Disney in some way. Most of the photos contained specific, relevant scenes from the movies mentioned in the podcast: Sleeping Beauty and Beauty and the Beast. Reflecting my ability to effectively practice the creative aspect of the Habits of Mind.

In my part of the podcast script, I hosted the whole conversation and guided the topic. As the host, I also connected the sections in a conversation-like manner. By doing so, I let restated the rest of my groupmates given information and provided my own opinion on the topic matter.

Wrapping up the whole conversation was also another important part of my role as the host of the podcast. Giving my own personal opinions on the matter allowed me to practice the importance of self-reflection. I figured that, since much of our podcast was packed with facts and the history of both of the Disney films mentioned, it was important to include a personal opinion on the matter and self-reflect.

Looking Ahead in Three Paragraphs

Of course to every large project, there are mistakes. Some that me and my groupmates experienced were mechanical issues like timezone for when we were going to record the podcast itself, website publishing issues, and big decision making like whether the podcast was going to be individually recorded or not. Although we did indeed struggle, we worked together to make an efficient schedule that satisfied the minimum requirements and had fun while doing so. The challenges influenced me, personally, to improve my communication skills and speak with clarity when working with others, which would make the whole process a lot smoother in the future.

The skill of collaborating is especially important when it comes to making such a large project look put together and professional. With such little time and lack of experience creating a website and podcast, it's very important that everyone is on the same track and understands and fulfills their part in the project. Luckily for me, my groupmates were really responsible and fulfilled their parts of the podcast and microsite creation. Just from this project alone, I learned that creating an organized schedule and assigning work to each group member beforehand is extremely important, and will definitely take note of that for future projects I have with new people.

The process of creating my own script for the podcast was a LOT of work, there's so much organization and responsibility included with creating a personal script. Most of what we talked about in the podcast will be included in my final essay for the class- particularly the discussion about comparing older and newer Disney Princesses and how they differ in their contribution and representation of social and gender norms during the time they were created. Some topics I plan to include in my essay are: the relationships between each princess and other supporting characters, their appearance and how each princess differs significantly, and their overall values in life.