The Great Thanksgiving Listen 2025

StoryCorps’ The Great Thanksgiving Listen (TGTL) offers high school ELA and social studies teachers a way to reconnect, recharge, and focus on students’ well-being. 

TGTL invites students to record interviews with a loved one or friend on the StoryCorps app and with one tap, upload it to the Library of Congress so it becomes part of American history. This intergenerational activity helps students practice listening skills, build empathy, deepen connections with loved ones, and understand that all of our lives and stories are equally and infinitely valuable. 

We realize Thanksgiving is fast approaching, but TGTL is easy to integrate into your classroom (and is aligned with Common Core standards). Following are a few ideas and in our library of materials, you can find many more, plus lesson plans, a sample permission slip, and a comprehensive toolkit at thegreatlisten.org/educators. 

• If you only have two days: On Day One, have your students watch and discuss one or both of our three-minute animated stories below, celebrating the lives of everyday people in the classroom. On Day Two, practice recording interviews on the app in the classroom. And ask the students to record with a loved one over the weekend as a “bonus” assignment.
• If you only have one day: Ask students to pair up. Pass out our Great Questions List. Then have students take turns interviewing one another for ten minutes each. 

Afterwards, ask students to reflect on their experience as both interviewer and storyteller. Then ask the students to honor a loved one with an interview over the weekend as a “bonus” assignment.