Podcast Assignment

To visitors: the students listed below granted permission to share their work with you. You'll see their scripts and then a link to their audio files. Below that, you'll find a description of the assignment as well as how I used AI to assist me in scaffolding the work.

Assignment Overview: You will create three parts I will grade: a concept, a script, and then a podcast that provides a different perspective of the H.G. Wells or Orson Welles (note spelling difference in their names) accounts of the Martian invasion of Earth. You may set it in the 1890s, 1930s, or at any time up to the present day.

• Use Eleven Labs software (set up a free account for 2 months) to turn your script into a podcast. I'll give you short demo, including how you can use multiple voices. 

• Keep the podcast SHORT: the free account only allows 20K characters of text-to-speech. I'd aim for a script of 1000 words or fewer (that's about 2 pages, single-spaced).

Part 1: Story Logic & Concept: How I Did  It

• Your podcast must make narrative sense if you set it after 1976, when NASA's Viking landers visited Mars. We found a planet that does not seem--at least on its surface-capable of supporting life today. You can do some background reading online about how Mars might still support microbial life beneath its surface, or how it likely had large bodes of water eons ago, water now largely lost.

• Start with a concept for your idea in a sentence or two (see what an AI came up with, below). You will submit this to me ahead of time for approval/suggestions.

• My podcast's concept: One of the Martians from Orson Welles' 1938 invastion developed some sympathy for humanity. It refused to carry out orders to destroy a group of civilians, including children. As fate had it, it also developed immunity from our germs, which means other Martians might do so and return to finish what they failed to do in 1938. At the end of the Cold War, a FOIA request by a journalist leads to an interview with this creature, now living comfortably as a NASA consultant, in a US government facility.

Part 2: The Script:
Based on my concept, I played around with some ideas, including that such an alien would be taken to a facility near Grovers Mill NJ. Princeton U came to mind and I remembered that Albert Einstein was working there, having fled Nazi Germany. Then I began playing with a short account by the journalist. Here's my script. It came in well under 1000 words. Yours should too.

Part 3: The Podcast

• You'll give your script to the ElevenLabs AI to create a news story based on your script. After you've read my script over, see what the result was like. It took me all of 10 minutes to generate this podcast.

• How do you get your podcast made? Here's how. Note that the podcast works like a news report ON your script. It will not match it word-by-word.

Some ideas that I bounced around with ChatGPT 4.0:

Here are 10 possible perspectives to enrich your students' options:

1. A Black resident of Harlem in 1938, reporting on how the broadcast spread through the neighborhood and how systemic distrust or experience with hoaxes shaped reactions.

2. A British war nurse during the Blitz, reflecting on her memories of the Martian invasion and drawing comparisons between human and alien warfare.

3. A Soviet scientist in the 1950s, decoding intercepted Martian signals and wrestling with ideological questions about alien technology and socialism.

4. An ecologist in the Amazon in the 1990s, documenting how the Martian arrival disrupted ecosystems—and what species seemed to thrive in their wake.

5. A child survivor of the original invasion, now an old man interviewed in a 1970s NPR-style retrospective on trauma, memory, and survival.

6. A conspiracy podcaster in the early 2000s, trying to "reveal the truth" about a second, hidden Martian invasion—complete with doctored audio and dramatic reenactments.

7. A descendant of the Martians living in a human-Mars colony in 2040, delivering a reflection piece on reconciliation and interspecies diplomacy.

8. A journalist covering the 1963 March on Washington, who weaves in commentary about how humanity came together after the Martian threat and how it echoes civil rights struggles.

9. A worker at the 1939 New York World’s Fair, broadcasting with enthusiasm about the "World of Tomorrow" while also quietly fearing another Martian return.

10. A Native elder recounting oral histories, contrasting the Martian invasion with earlier histories of colonialism, sharing wisdom on survival, resistance, and cultural endurance.