Go For Broke Journalism Institute

K-12 STEAM education

Pilot or new project, program, or initiative (testing or implementing a new idea)

Go For Broke National Education Center (GFBNEC) noted its corporate partners’ desire to hire the underserved youth from the neighborhoods they funded. The challenge, in particular within LAUSD high schools, was the lack of key resources to provide the practicum needed to help students think critically, conduct thorough, unbiased research, learn to make use of a range of specialized digital and technical tools and write on a professional level. Whether the students are preparing to enter the workforce, or continue with further formal education, future success will be measured by their ability to effectively and confidently problem-solve while utilizing the best available resources. Students from historically excluded communities lack opportunities for holistic STEAM mentoring programs that build on classroom learning through professional practitioner instruction in a condensed learning co-curricular format.

In partnership with AAJA-LA, the Journalism Institute is a unique, interactive educational opportunity for LAUSD’s Downtown Business Magnet high school students to develop their career-building, critical thinking, technology, primary source research and writing skills. The Institute keeps history alive and relevant by sharing it through a contemporary lens with diverse and younger audiences, and offers students a way be part of a vibrant democracy through journalistic work. Now in its third year, the Institute was intentionally kept small (10-15 students) to not only offer individual attention and small group instruction, but also to creatively design and evolve the curriculum guided by professional educators and journalists from ABC7 News, Los Angeles Times, New York Times and Washington Post. The format is a three-week summer intensive workshop. In week one, students learn and deconstruct the Japanese American WWII experience, and they see how to balance biases through a journalistic lens. Week one ends with investigative research, finding facts in the digital age, technology, storytelling and writing best practices. The second week focuses on audio-visual storytelling, interviewing, editing and podcasting. In the third week, students explore photojournalism, engaging content for social media and multimedia programming. For the capstone project, students complete a written or video journalistic piece to be shared within their high school and GFBNEC’s online network.

Empowering youth to understand their communities regionally and globally, and then share those stories is essential for communities to thrive. An impactful Institute will play a larger, significant role helping more students hone the skills needed for personal and professional achievement. The Institute’s initial success demonstrated that its creative approach not only brought professional journalistic expertise into the classroom, but also ensured that guided exploration of current social dynamics, history and individual and collective perspectives better equip students for work, community and dialogue. By developing and applying a range of analytic, technology and writing skills, and by broadening the students’ world beyond their community, both past and present, the Institute inspires young minds to tell stories and make new ones. The program will also be expanded to serve students from additional high schools and the curriculum shared throughout LAUSD as a teacher resource.

Pre and post surveys were collected to assess program expectations, journalistic experience, effectiveness of the curriculum and mentors, key takeaways and areas of improvement. Students reporting that they are better equipped to advance educational or career goals is the highest measure of success. Actual placement in further journalism programs and employment also indicate program effectiveness. Alumna, and then GFBNEC intern, Marissa Guadarrama, went on to Brown University as a Journalism major. In the next cohort, Lizzie Vargas (2023) used her capstone project to gain acceptance as one of 26 high school students in USC’s Annenberg Journalism Institute’s Youth Academy & Media Engagement this summer. Student reporting of developing writing, research and critical thinking skills are other key markers of program usefulness. Future metrics will capture the students' pre and post knowledge of the historical content, impact on college and career readiness and level of civic engagement.