what radio program motivated listeners to respond to a specific broadcast?
Relive (and re-create) the panic-causing 1938 radio broadcast of "War of the Worlds."
Keywords
H.G. Wells, Orson Welles, War of the Worlds, Spielberg, radio, theater, drama, Readers Theater, script, broadcast
Materials Needed 
Lesson Plan
Background Information
The year was 1938. Television receiver was in the experimental stages (the number of TVs in the United States numbered in the low hundreds), only people oftentimes gathered around radios to listen to the pop shows of the time.
On the dark before Halloween in 1938, "The Mercury Theater on the Air" radio programme presented an adaptation of an H.G. Wells novel, State of war of the Worlds. At the start of the broadcast, and several times throughout it, an announcer made it clear that the circulate was fictional, only many people missed those announcements. Another popular radio prove, "The Hunt and Sanborn Hour," aired at the same time equally Mercury Theater, then many people tuned into that popular plan and switched from it during commercial or musical breaks to listen to the "Mercury Theater" production.
Can you imagine tuning into the middle of a broadcast and hearing dialogue such as this?
PHILLIPS [RADIO ANNOUNCER]: I see, do yous still think information technology'southward a meteor, Professor? PIERSON [SCIENTIST REPORTING FROM A SITE WHERE AND OBJECT HAS LANDED]: I don't know what to think. The metal casing is definitely extraterrestrial . . . not establish on this earth. Friction with the earth'due south temper usually tears holes in a meteorite. This thing is smooth and, as you tin can meet, of cylindrical shape. PHILLIPS: Just a infinitesimal! Something's happening! Ladies and gentlemen, this is terrific! This cease of the matter is beginning to flake off! The height is get-go to rotate like a spiral! The thing must exist hollow! VOICES: She's movin'! Look, the darn thing'due south unscrewing! Go on back, there! Keep back, I tell you! Maybe there'southward men in it trying to escape! It's red hot, they'll burn to a cinder! Keep dorsum there. Keep those idiots back! (SUDDENLY THE CLANKING Audio OF A HUGE PIECE OF FALLING METAL) VOICES: She's off! The top'south loose! Look out there! Stand back! PHILLIPS: Ladies and gentlemen, this is the most terrifying affair I take ever witnessed . . . Wait a minute! Someone'south crawling out of the hollow summit. Someone or . . . something. I can see peering out of that black hole two luminous disks . . are they eyes? Information technology might be a face. Information technology might be . . .
Needless to say, many who tuned in without hearing the journalist's introduction, went into a panic. The New York Times, reported on the panic:
" A moving ridge of mass hysteria seized thousands of radio listeners between 8:xv and 9:30 o'clock last night when a circulate of a dramatization of H. Thou. Wells'southward fantasy, "The War of the Worlds," led thousands to believe that an interplanetary conflict had started with invading Martians spreading wide death and destruction in New Jersey and New York"
Lesson Ideas
Linguistic communication arts: Listening. To give students a season of the broadcast and so they besides might sense what people were listening to that evening, you lot might play the audio of the above dialogue.
Language arts: Reading aloud. Accept students read aloud "readers-theater manner" parts of the "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast script.
Language arts: Drama. Suit students into groups. Divide up the script and have groups rehearse their sections of information technology. Prepare bated fourth dimension for the groups to present their readings. You might "recreate" the original circulate by recording students' presentations. Students might even add sound furnishings to their presentations.
More Activities
Critical thinking and media literacy. In 1938, people were enjoying the Gilded Age of Radio. (The first commercial Television set broadcasts would non debut until 1941.) Radio -- along with newspapers and newsreels that were shown in movie theaters -- was an attainable source of news and amusement. People believed what they heard on the radio. To help put that thought into perspective, ask students to talk about how they use books, television, and the Internet equally sources of information. Ask: Exercise y'all think y'all could take been fooled by the radio broadcast of "The State of war of the Worlds"? Why might you have been fooled? Do you believe everything you read? Accept you always been fooled into believing that something you saw on TV or read on the Cyberspace was real when it was not?
You might innovate students to one or more of the following Web sites on the Net that are entirely artificial. But each of the sites is created so that information technology looks, feels, and even sounds real. Share a Web site -- see if students of today can still be fooled
Mankato, Minnesota Abode Page
Feline Reactions to Disguised Men
Republic of Molossia
Case Assay Of A Historic Killer Tornado Event In Kansas On 10 June 1938
History and Listening. Listen to some of the broadcasts that were role of the Gold Age of Radio at Sometime Radio World.
Critical thinking -- comparing and contrasting. Share with students the novel by H.G. Wells that was adapted for broadcast. Have students compare the novel to the radio script. (Click for complete text of the novel on the Projection Gutenberg Web site.) Or compare the book or radio script to the movie version filmed in 1953 or the Steven Spielberg version released in 2005. Note: The 2005 moving picture is rated PG-13, and then you will need parents' permission to show the moving picture to students age 13 or under; or you might show excerpts of the film that are carefully screened for appropriateness.
Other Resources
Study Guide for H. G. Wells: The War of the Worlds (1898)
WOW: War of the Worlds
WKBW's Recreation of the Radio Broadcast (1971)
Assessment
Given the circumstances of the 1938 radio broadcast of "War of the Worlds," practice you call back yous would have panicked? Accept students write a response to that questions in their journals. They must include three supporting ideas to justify their responses.
Lesson Plan Source
EducationWorld.com
Submitted By
Gary Hopkins
National Standards
FINE ARTS: Theatre
GRADES 5 - eight
NA-T.v-eight.2 Acting By Bold Roles and Interacting In Improvisations
NA-T.v-viii.5 Researching By Finding Data to Back up Classroom Dramatizations
NA-T.v-8.8 Understanding Context past Recognizing the Office of Theatre, Film, Tv set, and Electronic Media in Daily Life
GRADES 9 - 12
NA-T.9-12.2 Acting By Bold Roles and Interacting In Improvisations
NA-T.9-12.five Researching Past Finding Information to Support Classroom Dramatizations
NA-T.9-12.8 Understanding Context by Recognizing the Role of Theatre, Motion picture, Television, and Electronic Media in Daily Life
LANGUAGE ARTS: English
GRADES K - 12
NL-ENG.Chiliad-12.1 Reading for Perspective
NL-ENG.K-12.2 Reading for Agreement
NL-ENG.K-12.5 Communication Strategies
NL-ENG.Thousand-12.eight Developing Research Skills
NL-ENG.Grand-12.12 Applying Language Skills
SOCIAL SCIENCES: U.S. History
GRADES five - 12
NSS-USH.five-12.8 Era 8: The Great Depression and World War II (1929-1945)
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Source: https://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/dailylp/dailylp/dailylp020.shtml
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