Saturday, September 17, 2005
WEEK 4
I'm back. Last week I couldn't remember my login name for this site. After trying fuitlessly for 20 minutes, I gave up and decided to try again later. I didn't mean to wait an entire week, but oh well, here I am.
The Spokesman staff successfully delivered Issue #1, Volume 42 on Friday. I think it was a success. Now, if you had asked me last Monday, the fear in my voice would have been a dead give-away to my lack of confidence.
When I left school last Friday, templates were not working correctly, stories were still not on pages, the stories that were on pages were not fitting correctly; it was scary. Then I complicated things by catching a nasty sinus cold on Sunday, which rendered me useless on Monday as I lay on my couch blowing the snot from my nose at a rate of about 10 times an hour. Not pretty.
The amazing staff pulled through under good leadership though. On Monday, I only received one phone call, from Jon, because the printer called fairly upset since he did not know what was going on with the color and Jon couldn't help him. The color issue is a topic for a post of its own, so I will not digress here. By the time I returned on Tuesday, for the final deadline, Jake, Jon and Tara had things under control.
La Voz was having lots of problems with missing stories since one of its writers quit the week before. Jake took them under his wing and guided them through the excrutiating process of filling space when there are no words. Although it was the last page finished (at 12:30 a.m.), it had the best use of design elements of any page in the issue.
Jon used his anger constructively throughout pasteup to urge editors to finish pages and staffers to stop screwing around. There really wasn't much he could do to overcome the yearbook scooter distraction though. I think Andy, Nick, Karolina and some other staff members managed to put a few miles on the scooter before I finally decreed that it be put away at 11 p.m.
The end result of the hard work: 12 pages of some very good writing, including a great story about where the textbooks go when the school doesn't use them anymore, and some very bad writing, like stories with one source or no good quotations. We also made some headway on our goal of no pictures of people sitting a desk/table with a tilted head due to talking or writing (only 3 this issue). The 3 head-tilt photos were offset by some great action shots including the front page photo of NJROTC members collecting items for Hurricane Katrina victims.
Personally, I feel I have turned a new leaf as an adviser. I only lost my temper once. It was circulation day. I had been up until 12:30a.m. on Tuesday night so the staff could finish paste-up; I had been up until 11 p.m. on Wednesday because of grad class; my nose was still running. All I had wanted was to walk in to the room and see the circulation manager managing the circulation effort as we had discussed the day before. Instead, I found 10 staff members aimlessly walking around the room or reading copies of the paper and no circulation manager in sight. She had left, the staff members told me. That was the end of my sleep-deprived patience. Thirty seconds later the staff had stacks of newspapers in front of them while they dutifully counted out smallers piles to deliver the next day, and the circulation manager had returned from her trip to the vending machines for a bottle of water. I think we made it through just fine.
The feedback: unfortunately not too much yet. The most I was able to shake out of people was that they liked the Hookah Bar story in A&E and the Clash column about whether student blogs can be used to get the writers' in trouble.
Now it's on to the next issue. Story ideas were assigned much more smoothly this time around. The photography department has also improved its organization after a meeting with the EICs. Hopefully we'll learn from our mistakes and put out some full color when issue #2 is released Oct. 7.
The Spokesman staff successfully delivered Issue #1, Volume 42 on Friday. I think it was a success. Now, if you had asked me last Monday, the fear in my voice would have been a dead give-away to my lack of confidence.
When I left school last Friday, templates were not working correctly, stories were still not on pages, the stories that were on pages were not fitting correctly; it was scary. Then I complicated things by catching a nasty sinus cold on Sunday, which rendered me useless on Monday as I lay on my couch blowing the snot from my nose at a rate of about 10 times an hour. Not pretty.
The amazing staff pulled through under good leadership though. On Monday, I only received one phone call, from Jon, because the printer called fairly upset since he did not know what was going on with the color and Jon couldn't help him. The color issue is a topic for a post of its own, so I will not digress here. By the time I returned on Tuesday, for the final deadline, Jake, Jon and Tara had things under control.
La Voz was having lots of problems with missing stories since one of its writers quit the week before. Jake took them under his wing and guided them through the excrutiating process of filling space when there are no words. Although it was the last page finished (at 12:30 a.m.), it had the best use of design elements of any page in the issue.
Jon used his anger constructively throughout pasteup to urge editors to finish pages and staffers to stop screwing around. There really wasn't much he could do to overcome the yearbook scooter distraction though. I think Andy, Nick, Karolina and some other staff members managed to put a few miles on the scooter before I finally decreed that it be put away at 11 p.m.
The end result of the hard work: 12 pages of some very good writing, including a great story about where the textbooks go when the school doesn't use them anymore, and some very bad writing, like stories with one source or no good quotations. We also made some headway on our goal of no pictures of people sitting a desk/table with a tilted head due to talking or writing (only 3 this issue). The 3 head-tilt photos were offset by some great action shots including the front page photo of NJROTC members collecting items for Hurricane Katrina victims.
Personally, I feel I have turned a new leaf as an adviser. I only lost my temper once. It was circulation day. I had been up until 12:30a.m. on Tuesday night so the staff could finish paste-up; I had been up until 11 p.m. on Wednesday because of grad class; my nose was still running. All I had wanted was to walk in to the room and see the circulation manager managing the circulation effort as we had discussed the day before. Instead, I found 10 staff members aimlessly walking around the room or reading copies of the paper and no circulation manager in sight. She had left, the staff members told me. That was the end of my sleep-deprived patience. Thirty seconds later the staff had stacks of newspapers in front of them while they dutifully counted out smallers piles to deliver the next day, and the circulation manager had returned from her trip to the vending machines for a bottle of water. I think we made it through just fine.
The feedback: unfortunately not too much yet. The most I was able to shake out of people was that they liked the Hookah Bar story in A&E and the Clash column about whether student blogs can be used to get the writers' in trouble.
Now it's on to the next issue. Story ideas were assigned much more smoothly this time around. The photography department has also improved its organization after a meeting with the EICs. Hopefully we'll learn from our mistakes and put out some full color when issue #2 is released Oct. 7.
Friday, September 02, 2005
Just getting started
As I start my sixth year here at Wheeling High School, I thought I would follow in Jack Kennedy's lead. No, not the former president. Jack is a newspaper adviser in Colorado who has been chronicaling his adventures starting a newspaper at a new high school.
My students and I heard Jack speak last spring at the NISPA (Northern Illinois School Press Association) Conference. He inspired my students to be better writers and to write "stories" not "articles" in their newspaper. He inspired me to do some writing of my own. As we walked to lunch, he was telling me how he goes about writing his "South of Denver" chapters and said something along the lines of "As teachers, we should be writing too, it helps us teach better when we're in practice."
So, here I am, practicing. I'm not sure how good I will be, but maybe by the end, the readers of "The Wheels of Spokesman" will have a better understanding of what it is that we do down in room 135.
My students and I heard Jack speak last spring at the NISPA (Northern Illinois School Press Association) Conference. He inspired my students to be better writers and to write "stories" not "articles" in their newspaper. He inspired me to do some writing of my own. As we walked to lunch, he was telling me how he goes about writing his "South of Denver" chapters and said something along the lines of "As teachers, we should be writing too, it helps us teach better when we're in practice."
So, here I am, practicing. I'm not sure how good I will be, but maybe by the end, the readers of "The Wheels of Spokesman" will have a better understanding of what it is that we do down in room 135.
Week 2
In the true nature of my teaching style, I am a little late starting this. It is the end of week two and I was really hoping to start with week one. Oh well.
In light of all that is happening in the world this week, it is a little difficult to be upset about the lack of organization on the newspaper. However, sometimes the little world that we live in needs attention before we can begin to fix the larger problems of the nation.
So what are our problems? Well, too many staffers missed deadlines. The second week of school is no excuse for not getting interviews and writing stories. On the first deadline, over 20 stories were not turned in. At first, I thought maybe this was just new people not understanding the system (which is understandable since it does move so fast). However, it turns out just as many returning staffers missed the deadline as did new. So on to the next theory.
I talked to the Jake about it, and then I had a little discussion with the staff. I had high hopes for the second deadline which came on Thursday. Based on a brief glance though, nothing sunk in. So now I will sit back and let them reap the consequences. Layout is on Tuesday, and it will be interesting to see what kind of paper we can plan without stories.
Which brings me to the photography section. Since our two photography editors are both new, and do not have class the same period, we have run into all kinds of communications issues. First it was how to assign photo assignments. Then it was how to keep track of who was doing what. Then it was no one taking photos. I'm afraid our two editors may be in over their heads, and I want to help, but they don't seem to want my help yet. We'll see where this ends up on Tuesday as well.
I think this is where most of my fear lies; it is in the helplessness that I feel since I am not in the room with every period of staff. I feel that the glue I often offer to the staff is a little less sticky this year. The first issue is always an adjustment period, so I expect no less from this year. However, I am very anxious to get it over with and move on to the bigger and better things we will accomplish once we start issue 2.
In light of all that is happening in the world this week, it is a little difficult to be upset about the lack of organization on the newspaper. However, sometimes the little world that we live in needs attention before we can begin to fix the larger problems of the nation.
So what are our problems? Well, too many staffers missed deadlines. The second week of school is no excuse for not getting interviews and writing stories. On the first deadline, over 20 stories were not turned in. At first, I thought maybe this was just new people not understanding the system (which is understandable since it does move so fast). However, it turns out just as many returning staffers missed the deadline as did new. So on to the next theory.
I talked to the Jake about it, and then I had a little discussion with the staff. I had high hopes for the second deadline which came on Thursday. Based on a brief glance though, nothing sunk in. So now I will sit back and let them reap the consequences. Layout is on Tuesday, and it will be interesting to see what kind of paper we can plan without stories.
Which brings me to the photography section. Since our two photography editors are both new, and do not have class the same period, we have run into all kinds of communications issues. First it was how to assign photo assignments. Then it was how to keep track of who was doing what. Then it was no one taking photos. I'm afraid our two editors may be in over their heads, and I want to help, but they don't seem to want my help yet. We'll see where this ends up on Tuesday as well.
I think this is where most of my fear lies; it is in the helplessness that I feel since I am not in the room with every period of staff. I feel that the glue I often offer to the staff is a little less sticky this year. The first issue is always an adjustment period, so I expect no less from this year. However, I am very anxious to get it over with and move on to the bigger and better things we will accomplish once we start issue 2.
