In 1991-2, Suzanne Lacy and Chris Johnson volunteered to work weekly with two teachers at Oakland Technical High School. The four teachers created a media literacy curriculum to explore the relationship between mass media images and teen identity. High school students completed the year long class by participating in Teen Age Living Room, a small performance sketch at California College of Arts that provided the model and vision for The Roof is on Fire.

For one year before Roof on Fire, fifteen teachers from eight Oakland public high schools participated in a certified program paid by Oakland Unified and designed by Johnson and Lacy. A series of workshops with distinguished faculty such as educator Herb Kohl and sociologists Tod Gitlin and Troy Duster, the class introduced media literacy in the classroom as a way to engage students. Teachers invented and delivered lesson plans in their schools.

After the course, these teachers brought students from their schools, forty in all, to participate in weekly after school planning sessions for the performance. From this group, 15 students were elected to be the Youth Steering Committee, which participated in all aspects of the production and media coverage.