Listening Guides support active listening of each episode by helping students activate prior knowledge, track the episode’s central ideas, and synthesize understanding. The guides direct students to relevant entries in the Features of Capitalism explainer, which connect each episode to broader ideas about how capitalist systems work.

The Features of Capitalism explainer introduces six recurring features shared by many capitalist economies. Each Listening Guide points students to the features most relevant to the historical developments, ideas, and debates discussed in that episode. As students revisit the features across episodes and examine the relationships among them, they develop a vocabulary and conceptual framework for understanding how capitalist systems function and how they have changed across time and place.

Investigations invite students to dig deeper into questions and ideas raised by the podcast. Students examine historical and contemporary sources, weigh evidence and perspectives, make connections across sources, and, in some investigations, conduct research of their own.

The Interview Toolkit supports students to connect episode content to the experiences and perspectives of people in their own communities. Drawing on interviews from Scene on Radio as models, the toolkit prepares students to develop thoughtful interview questions, conduct three types of interviews, record conversations effectively, and reflect on what they learn.