The Adventure Zone: Amnesty is a comedy podcast available through regular podcast mediums, such as Spotify, Apple etc, but even better, this is available on a free to access website. This really appealed to me as someone who has taught in less privileged schools where access to paid subscriptions was not possible for a lot of students; the ability to access this for free means any student with a laptop (even one that stays at school) could access this text.
The podcast is run by three brothers and their father (The McElroys). It is very much a “choose your own adventure” style of storytelling, with the brothers speaking in second person to each other throughout (eg. “You are working an overnight shift when…”). They banter back and forth, putting each other in situations they must figure out along the way as the narrative develops. Each episode is one hour in length and would be better suited to older grades (perhaps year 10-12) due to some inappropriate language.
The podcast breaks down each “chapter” of the story, and the authors provide a full PDF transcript to download, which I found useful and could imagine being used to analyse story structure in an English lesson. Each episode follows a “monster of the week” format, which they discuss in their set-up episode. While the site itself is quite sophisticated, the website is very easy to navigate, particularly for digitally literate adolescents. Listeners also have the opportunity to become paid members to access hours of bonus material. Each chapter is told with all original music and sound effects, which would appeal to auditory learners.
While a different platform to the previously reviewed text, it once again falls into the fantasy genre. Namesake allows new readers to engage easily from the start; The Adventure Zone feels very niche and new listeners would be quite confused to begin with. It has a very Dungeons and Dragons vibe to it that some students would respond well to, while others may struggle to get used to the “choose your own adventure” narrative style and the banter between the storytellers, which can be quite distracting at times as they veer away from the story itself.
What I find fascinating about this kind of reading is that it isn’t really reading at all; audio books (and by their very nature, storytelling podcasts) have nothing to do with reading and hail back to a time when “ancient cultures started from stories and story telling and the spoken word” (Better Reading, 2015). This text has the same feel as sitting around a fire sharing a story, except each person gets the opportunity to decide where the story is going. I can see this appealing to all kinds of students, but perhaps particularly the boys I have taught in the past who struggled to read would see the value in a different form of storytelling altogether. This text also has the extra benefit of music and sound effects, adding to the impact overall. Levy (2009) stated that “accepted understandings of what is meant by the terms ‘reading’ and ‘being a reader’ have become challenged” in this current digital literacy age. While Levy was referring more to the act of decoding online texts, this could also apply to ‘listening’ as a form of ‘reading’; or more accurately, changing the way students engage with storytelling and traditional narratives. In this way, The Adventure Zone feels very traditional, yet far removed from the traditional book, and thus may prove more engaging for many students.
Similar to Namesake, this platform also encourages the same expansion of worlds, with the podcast even having its own fandom wiki for readers to engage with. Readers can read up on interviews with the creators, as well as connect with other fans through social media, Reddit groups, newsletters etc. This concept of social reading and all that implies is further evidence that readers are not just interested in the story itself but what happens before, during and after a reading activity (ACM, 2021). Even the fact that the creators have a “set up” episode beforehand shows they know their audience and their desire to connect with their stories on a much deeper level than just reading a book may provide.
As for use in the secondary classroom, this could be great in an English class, examining narrative structure and transmedia storytelling. I’d love to see how students would go creating their own “choose your own adventure” narratives via this medium, creating “interactive and dynamic reading experiences that go beyond the printed page” (Hovious et al., 2021, p. 217).
REFERENCE LIST:
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). (2021, March 2). I’ve got all my readers with me: A model of reading as a social activity [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/vFvoduu8KrY
Better Reading. (2015). The power of audio books: A different way to ‘read’. http://www.betterreading.com.au/news/the-power-of-audio-books-a-different-way-to-read/
Hovious, A., Shinas, V. H., & Harper, I. (2021). The compelling nature of transmedia storytelling: Empowering twenty first-century readers and writers through multimodality. Technology, Knowledge and Learning, 26, 215-229. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10758-020-09437-7
Levy, R. (2009). ‘You have to understand the words…but not read them’: young children becoming readers in a digital age. Journal of Research in Reading, 32(1). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9817.01382.x
