Students will launch the neighborhood storytelling project, surface assumptions about how Chicago neighborhoods are represented, and define an initial, evidence-based inquiry focus centered on real people affected by those representations.

Students will investigate how Chicago neighborhoods are represented by gathering firsthand and local evidence, evaluating the credibility of human, archival, and AI-generated information, identifying root causes behind incomplete or stereotyped narratives, and proposing a strong direction for their TED-style neighborhood story.

Students will turn verified neighborhood research into a designed TED-style talk by studying strong models, planning their message and media, drafting a testable prediction about audience impact, building and revising core artifacts, and documenting how feedback changed their work.

Students will implement and test their TED-style neighborhood story for a practice audience, collect evidence about clarity and credibility, and use that evidence to judge what to revise before the public showcase.

Students will present their neighborhood story work to an authentic audience and document how their research, AI judgment, storytelling, and revision process changed their thinking, communication, and sense of responsibility as community journalists.