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?
