Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Term 3, Week 2, Pasteup
Andy is standing at the podium reading memos from Amanda's phone. Amanda is laying on the table laughing. Jake is sitting at a table trying to get his homework done. And Jon, I'm not really sure what he is doing. I think he is hugging Andy.
It's 9:18 p.m. and we have one page left to finish. Most of the 24 staff members are at home sleeping or doing homework. As far as time is concerned, the pasteup wasn't too bad. As far as quality, it was not good. There are too many simple, basic errors. Several pages had spacing issues, no equal spacing between elements. Cutlines stated the obvious. Stories were confusing to read, no real focus.
I had to yell today. In fact, I got angry. This morning when I came in, there were many pages that had big pieces missing.
Okay, it's not pasteup anymore. In fact it's Sunday and the paper came out two days ago. We got lots of great feedback on the sex spread and Trisha Leu story. Elizabeth was so excited her face was bright red and she had trouble making complete sentences when she was telling me about her day. It was nice to be the adviser then.
Overall, the Spokesman kids did it again. It looked like disaster on Tuesday during the day. By the end of the night, they got their stuff together and put out a terrific issue. Now, was it because I got mad? Or did I get mad too early? I guess we'll have to try an experiment next time.
It's 9:18 p.m. and we have one page left to finish. Most of the 24 staff members are at home sleeping or doing homework. As far as time is concerned, the pasteup wasn't too bad. As far as quality, it was not good. There are too many simple, basic errors. Several pages had spacing issues, no equal spacing between elements. Cutlines stated the obvious. Stories were confusing to read, no real focus.
I had to yell today. In fact, I got angry. This morning when I came in, there were many pages that had big pieces missing.
Okay, it's not pasteup anymore. In fact it's Sunday and the paper came out two days ago. We got lots of great feedback on the sex spread and Trisha Leu story. Elizabeth was so excited her face was bright red and she had trouble making complete sentences when she was telling me about her day. It was nice to be the adviser then.
Overall, the Spokesman kids did it again. It looked like disaster on Tuesday during the day. By the end of the night, they got their stuff together and put out a terrific issue. Now, was it because I got mad? Or did I get mad too early? I guess we'll have to try an experiment next time.
Monday, January 30, 2006
Term 3, Week 2, Monday afternoon
Elizabeth: I don't want to be the one to tell you, but there is mass chaos in the Spokesman room. The Spokesman room just blew up.
Barrett: Let me finish this bite.
So today is busy, and it is not going exactly to plan.
Journalistic Writing 1 was a bit of a problem when the students didn't understand the News Journal Assignment. Too much, too fast in one day. Though Chrystal made it through with flying colors. She knows how to work with kids one on one, so she did great with them in the library.
Barack Obama was interesting. Since the Town Hall Meeting was held at 10:30 on a Monday morning, there were a lot of retirees in attendance. Though it was very good for Marie and Jake to see a politician speak. Obama handled the crowd with class. He addressed everyone's questions with honesty and concern, even if he didn't really have an answer. We were a little disappointed that no one asked him questions specifically about Illinois or our area. Oh well. They also got to ask Senator Link a few questions. I wish politics were more about making the world a better place and not so much about making everyone like you. It's a little depressing to see grown men wordsmith the public and students so that they sound like they are doing something great. If you do something great, it should speak for itself.
On our return from the Obama meeting, we crashed and burned. Pages 1 and 12 are a mess. People haven't written stories, taken pictures, edited; it's crazy. I don't know exactly what is going on. Are they overwhelmed? Are the just not doing the work? Do they expect that it will just get done somehow? The paper isn't going to be very good since we have to keep rearranging designs to account for people's short-comings. It is really a shame since we have a few great stories,like Elizabeth's overweight cheerleader story and Tara's pregnant teen story, that are going in. They will get lost in the mediocrity of variety show pictures without stories, a front page with bad graphics, and an opinion page without an editorial.
Where have I gone wrong?
Barrett: Let me finish this bite.
So today is busy, and it is not going exactly to plan.
Journalistic Writing 1 was a bit of a problem when the students didn't understand the News Journal Assignment. Too much, too fast in one day. Though Chrystal made it through with flying colors. She knows how to work with kids one on one, so she did great with them in the library.
Barack Obama was interesting. Since the Town Hall Meeting was held at 10:30 on a Monday morning, there were a lot of retirees in attendance. Though it was very good for Marie and Jake to see a politician speak. Obama handled the crowd with class. He addressed everyone's questions with honesty and concern, even if he didn't really have an answer. We were a little disappointed that no one asked him questions specifically about Illinois or our area. Oh well. They also got to ask Senator Link a few questions. I wish politics were more about making the world a better place and not so much about making everyone like you. It's a little depressing to see grown men wordsmith the public and students so that they sound like they are doing something great. If you do something great, it should speak for itself.
On our return from the Obama meeting, we crashed and burned. Pages 1 and 12 are a mess. People haven't written stories, taken pictures, edited; it's crazy. I don't know exactly what is going on. Are they overwhelmed? Are the just not doing the work? Do they expect that it will just get done somehow? The paper isn't going to be very good since we have to keep rearranging designs to account for people's short-comings. It is really a shame since we have a few great stories,like Elizabeth's overweight cheerleader story and Tara's pregnant teen story, that are going in. They will get lost in the mediocrity of variety show pictures without stories, a front page with bad graphics, and an opinion page without an editorial.
Where have I gone wrong?
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Term 3, Week 2
Alright, so I am not good at doing this on a regular basis. I will keep trying though.
Tonight is going to be short. It's already 9:45 and I have to get to bed quickly. I have a big day tomorrow.
Tomorrow morning at 10 a.m., I will leave with Dr. Lane, Jake and Marie for London Middle School. Barack Obama will be speaking there. I am excited not only to see him speak, but I think this is going to be a great experience for my journalists. How often do they get the chance to cover a national speaker? Hopefully I can guide them to be journalists and not get too caught up in the celebrity of it.
Tomorrow is also the first time that I will leave my student teacher, Chrystal, alone with the class. I'm not really worried about how she will do; I know she'll be great. I am worried because she doesn't know about this yet. Of course, I am not leaving her for the entire block, just a little less than half. But I do feel bad about throwing this on her first thing tomorrow morning. I guess that's teaching for you though.
Tomorrow is pasteup for pages 1 and 12. Since Marie (sports editor, in charge of page 12) will be with me at London during what is her Spokesman period, we are going to have a challenge getting done by 4 p.m. I'm hoping that others will pick up some of the slack and help out. I'm also hoping that Andy (news editor, in charge of page 1) will be able to get a lot done on his own. He has been much more confident in himself lately, and he has also been a lot more dedicated lately. This is a good sign for tomorrow.
Tomorrow is our vocabulary workshop meeting after school. I'm really looking forward to this workshop actually. Sitting around and talking about how to effectively teach vocabulary may sound a little dry, but I could use some help in my techniques. Of course since this is right after school it complicates the page 1 and 12 deadline. I haven't quite figured out how I am going to work this yet. Maybe something will come to me in my sleep.
Tomorrow is going to be good.
Night!
Tonight is going to be short. It's already 9:45 and I have to get to bed quickly. I have a big day tomorrow.
Tomorrow morning at 10 a.m., I will leave with Dr. Lane, Jake and Marie for London Middle School. Barack Obama will be speaking there. I am excited not only to see him speak, but I think this is going to be a great experience for my journalists. How often do they get the chance to cover a national speaker? Hopefully I can guide them to be journalists and not get too caught up in the celebrity of it.
Tomorrow is also the first time that I will leave my student teacher, Chrystal, alone with the class. I'm not really worried about how she will do; I know she'll be great. I am worried because she doesn't know about this yet. Of course, I am not leaving her for the entire block, just a little less than half. But I do feel bad about throwing this on her first thing tomorrow morning. I guess that's teaching for you though.
Tomorrow is pasteup for pages 1 and 12. Since Marie (sports editor, in charge of page 12) will be with me at London during what is her Spokesman period, we are going to have a challenge getting done by 4 p.m. I'm hoping that others will pick up some of the slack and help out. I'm also hoping that Andy (news editor, in charge of page 1) will be able to get a lot done on his own. He has been much more confident in himself lately, and he has also been a lot more dedicated lately. This is a good sign for tomorrow.
Tomorrow is our vocabulary workshop meeting after school. I'm really looking forward to this workshop actually. Sitting around and talking about how to effectively teach vocabulary may sound a little dry, but I could use some help in my techniques. Of course since this is right after school it complicates the page 1 and 12 deadline. I haven't quite figured out how I am going to work this yet. Maybe something will come to me in my sleep.
Tomorrow is going to be good.
Night!
