Your piece was very interesting, your story flowed well and had the necessary pieces a story should have such as beginning, middle, and end. There were no clips or cuts that I could hear and your volume levels were balanced. I've been to a few schools in my lifetime and I have to say there?s always a Vanessa Calhoun in every school, a teacher that doesn?t go by the books and engages her classroom to participate by making the subject fun and interactive. Your piece was very light in the beginning but towards the end when I heard about her mothers death it became more intimate and personal and somewhat emotional for me and I assume other listeners as well. Hopefully your piece will get licensed and might inspire other teachers to try new things in their classrooms. Good luck on all future projects!

I didn?t even think protests were still going on in the United States at all. I mean they don't get a lot of news coverage at all and I don?t know any people personally who are protesting the war. Why? I don't have an answer to that maybe my generation is too consumed with other things in our lives, insignificant distractions if you will. I was once in a class where an older gentleman in his 40's had said he didn't understand why my generation wasn't involved in protests and why we weren?t asking questions. He told me that in his generation it was nothing but protest and questioning authority, and societies so called morality, but our generation has lied down and submitted like a dog. Hopefully after hearing a piece like this us dogs won't submit any more. Your piece was very well organized and thought provoking everything ran through smoothly and I liked your use of sound when interviewing Alan Wolf by the highway this sounded excellent and made me the listener feel as if I was there. You should try to get this played on the air hopefully it will wake some people up.

This piece is very personal but because of the connection with music it's very relatable to the audience, almost everyone has distinct memories that are linked to music. Listening to this piece brings me back to my first experiences with music and how I felt as a child when listening to my favorite songs. Your piece has a strong visual undertone to it that I think is due in part to your narration and writing. I could be stereotyping but while listening to your piece I envisioned rural America and the music store being completely furnished with wood! lol you know wood floors, a wood counter, and guitars on the wall. This was a great piece good luck with future projects.

I loved this piece for a lot of reasons mostly because i feel your fathers stories is like a lot of peoples stories who come to the U.S in search of "a better life" for some this search becomes a reality for others the reality is too real to comprehend. The production on your story was excellent and evrything sounded great, your story made sense and evertything flowed smoothly. I look forward to more real pieces like this.

One of the reasons i gave you a 2 out of 5 on this piece wasn't because of the content but because of your production primarily the way you delivered the story, in all truth i'd like to give you a 4 out of 5 on both part one and two of getting raised. I wish you would of taken more time on delivering this story and tried to have made it sound like you weren't reading from a piece of paper. Your content however was definetly a 4 out of 5, it took a lot of courage to put yourself out there and talk about something real I know i probably couldn't do it. If you slow down and take your time telling your story this can definetly become a stronger piece, you don't have to change what your saying just how your saying it. Even though theres no music or SFX this is still a strong piece without you utilising any of them. In fact i don't even think you need to add them sometimes it can be a distraction. You should go back and see what you can add to this piece if anything. Besides that i liked listening to your piece. Your already on your way to telling great stories on radio, you have the most important tool already which is being real and taking risks.

This is a good piece even though it's short, I wish it were longer but I guess that just depends on what you were trying to convey to the listener. Whenever I hear in depth real pieces like this I always ask myself what was the point? How can I help? A lot of times documentaries come out which are purely sensational and exploitative. There's a tragedy, a victim, a microphone and a camera in someones face. There are these oooh and ahh moments but no results. Now I know that like me you are and up and coming producer and in no way some big media giant trying to exploit someone?s else?s pain but I wish that as a listener there was a number or an email address, a website where me and other people who listen to this piece could send some money. This is something that may sound difficult but it?s definitely possibly. When people listen to real pieces like yours or anyone?s they can be come moved and inspired, but the trick is giving the audience directions where to move to. People do care and do want change they just need to be told how to do it. The production on your piece was good the only thing missing was how the audience can help. This is a great piece I look forward to listening to more of your work.

There were some great things that I liked about this piece and some aspects that needed improvement. One of the main reasons why I liked this piece was the real feeling I heard while listening to it. During the immigration debate mainstream media attempted to show how young people with parents who were illegal immigrants were affected by this issue. In my opinion mainstream media didn't convey the emotional tone like the way you students did. I wanted to listen to this piece because I wanted to hear what middle school students thought about this issue. The older generation can sometimes lose touch with the thoughts the younger generation has and tends to ignore them. It was interesting just to hear young "un-staged thoughts" as oppose to a conventional news format.

There were some production issues that needed to be taken care of such as certain elements that should be cut out or remain on raw tape. And also I wish I could of heard some more students that oppose immigrants coming to this country just to hear their take on it. But regardless of that you guys showed diversity in your interview and you let the students tell it the way it is.