Article

PV Fourth-Graders Making Waves Over Radio

by Dan Berrett, Pocono Record Writer

May 2, 2007

Kunkletown - The voice on the radio was warbly and a few octaves higher than expected.

"This is the PVE Network," it said. "Live, from Kunkletown. It's W-E-B-B!"

On Friday morning, the 25 students in Dave Webb's fourth-grade class lay flat on the floor, eyes pinned on the gray radio sitting on a chair in the corner of a Pleasant Valley Elementary classroom.

They were listening to the 12-minute radio show they wrote, produced, and performed, which was airing on WESS-90.3 FM, the radio station of East Stroudsburg University.

Several students lip-synched to every line. Others danced to the music that marked transitions between segments. All of their faces were beaming.

"When the state tests are over," Webb said, "you like to do special projects. Something fun."

That's exactly what this project was for the students. Webb said he saw the students' attitudes brighten over the three weeks that they worked on the project, once the drudgery of preparing for standardized tests was over. "Their behavior was the best I'd ever seen," he said. "They were in awe of the process."

The baby-faced Webb grew up well after the Golden Age of Radio (he declined to give his exact age), but he has held a love for the medium for most of his life.

Webb has made producing radio shows a staple of his classes since he started teaching in Virginia. At first, when he taught in private school, they took the form of morality plays. Later, once he started at public schools, they turned into fake news shows with student-generated commercials.

"When I was a kid, I wanted to be a radio DJ and own my own radio station. Of course, it'd be W-E-B-B," Webb said. "I sort of got what I wanted."

Webb asked this year's fourth-graders to convceive, write, and record commercials in groups.

Their commercials ranged from the silly to sillier. One pitched a "kid beard" which could make a nervous, undersized student look older and more mature upon entering Pleasant Valley Intermediate School next year.

Another hawked the Voice Activator 3000, which Antonio Santana, 10, of Brodheadsville conceived. It was an imaginary product that could make ice on hot days and hot chocolate on cold ones, but only in response to the owner's voice. It was the perfect product for someone like Santana, with two younger brothers who, he said, tend to eat and drink his food.

"When I grow up, I'd like to build it," Santana said.

Webb also looked for professional help with the show. He found Bella Thorne, a Hollywood actress who is the same age as his students. He recognized her from a Texas Instruments commercial; she is also a veteran of television, film, and print ads.

He approached Thorne through her manager. The girl agreed to record a voice-over from her home for the "Recess Monkey," a pet to take along to the playground.

Thorne sent Webb several takes, and the class and Thorne began corresponding over the Internet.

Webb used the professional actress' style of reading as an example for his students. "When we'd read, I'd say, 'Read it like Bella would,'" he said. "I've heard them be more expressive."

Once all the spots were recorded, Webb had some students read the text of newscasts and the transitions that he had written. He put the spots together into a unified show using his four-track mixer and sent it to ESU, which broadcast the program this year and last.

"It's really difficult because you have to get everything right," said Dawn Anderson, 11, describing the recording process. But the work was worth it, she said. "I got to be live on a live radio show, and it was really, really fun."

Associated Press