Sunday, September 28, 2008
Other journalism experts
So this week was pretty exciting around room 137. We had a guest speaker on Wednesday. Maggie Messitt, a journalist from South Africa, came to speak to Spokesman about community journalism and the paper she edits in her community in South Africa. Since then, my students have been walking around saying "follow the soldier, not the army". It's the new philosophy on where to focus when reporting that they got from Maggie. It was very inspirational.
Next up on our experts from outside of WHS was the University of Illinois Press Day. I took nine of my staffers down to U of I for the day. It was fabulous. I even got excited about a new idea for how we run our production schedule. I think I got all of the fieldtrippers on board, so we'll see what the rest of the staff thinks tomorrow. Each one of the nine fieldtrippers came back with at least one great new idea. That makes me feel good. And they all lived through the 5:30 a.m. meeting time. I'm so proud.
I think that about covers the highlights from last week. The week before, for which I had not gotten around to blogging about, was our distribution week. All went well with issue 1. Yea!
Next up on our experts from outside of WHS was the University of Illinois Press Day. I took nine of my staffers down to U of I for the day. It was fabulous. I even got excited about a new idea for how we run our production schedule. I think I got all of the fieldtrippers on board, so we'll see what the rest of the staff thinks tomorrow. Each one of the nine fieldtrippers came back with at least one great new idea. That makes me feel good. And they all lived through the 5:30 a.m. meeting time. I'm so proud.
I think that about covers the highlights from last week. The week before, for which I had not gotten around to blogging about, was our distribution week. All went well with issue 1. Yea!
Sunday, September 14, 2008
A look back at the first full week
This week's highlights:
Stories are coming together... slowly, but surely. The staff laid out the paper as a team. Everyone chipped in to help those who had to leave for swim meets and debate meetings. It was nice to sit back and watch it work.
Parent Open House - Spokesman had more parents than any of my other classes. It's nice to have such a supportive system behind the kids.
Breaking story - So on Thursday, Sarah came to class with a breaking story tip. She and Alex followed the lead to its dead end. It was so fun to watch them get to work on an exciting lead. They went down to the main office and got to interview the principal and the associate principal right away. Sarah even got to make some phone calls to other buildings. In the end, the tip turned out to be wrong. But the experience was an awesome one on how to track down a story. And it all happened with about two hours.
What we need to work on:
Page printouts were due on Friday. While most of them were turned in, it was a little less than what I had hoped for. It's not a terrible situation. However, there are some key pieces missing on pages that don't have really good reasons for being missing. We should not be waiting for a picture of the band director. The EICs are going to talk to the staff tomorrow about the importance of page printout deadline.
Interesting tidbit:
A student, not on staff, came to me last week (I think) to ask if Spokesman would be publishing something about how everyone should make sure to register to vote. I explained that we would be happy to run an ad, however, we try not to advertise for things since that taints our credibility. He came back again on Friday. It's so hard to see a student so passionate about something that I, too, am passionate about and have to send them away disappointed. The highlight here is how my EIC has handled it. She sees that us putting in this reminder when we don't put in reminders about everything else is a conflict. I am so proud of these guys!
Next week:
Look out for our first pasteup and our first issue!
Stories are coming together... slowly, but surely. The staff laid out the paper as a team. Everyone chipped in to help those who had to leave for swim meets and debate meetings. It was nice to sit back and watch it work.
Parent Open House - Spokesman had more parents than any of my other classes. It's nice to have such a supportive system behind the kids.
Breaking story - So on Thursday, Sarah came to class with a breaking story tip. She and Alex followed the lead to its dead end. It was so fun to watch them get to work on an exciting lead. They went down to the main office and got to interview the principal and the associate principal right away. Sarah even got to make some phone calls to other buildings. In the end, the tip turned out to be wrong. But the experience was an awesome one on how to track down a story. And it all happened with about two hours.
What we need to work on:
Page printouts were due on Friday. While most of them were turned in, it was a little less than what I had hoped for. It's not a terrible situation. However, there are some key pieces missing on pages that don't have really good reasons for being missing. We should not be waiting for a picture of the band director. The EICs are going to talk to the staff tomorrow about the importance of page printout deadline.
Interesting tidbit:
A student, not on staff, came to me last week (I think) to ask if Spokesman would be publishing something about how everyone should make sure to register to vote. I explained that we would be happy to run an ad, however, we try not to advertise for things since that taints our credibility. He came back again on Friday. It's so hard to see a student so passionate about something that I, too, am passionate about and have to send them away disappointed. The highlight here is how my EIC has handled it. She sees that us putting in this reminder when we don't put in reminders about everything else is a conflict. I am so proud of these guys!
Next week:
Look out for our first pasteup and our first issue!
Sunday, September 07, 2008
Fieldtrips!
I changed the grading system this year so that fieldtrips are extra credit. I don't want to hurt anyone's grade if they can't go, but it should certainly help someone's grade if they do go and learn something extra.
It's had a wonderful effect. I think I have 11 people going to the University of Illinois Press Day this year. It's a good conference and a quick one. Last year I only had one student go. We had a great time, but I felt bad for Dan that he had to spend the entire day hanging out with me. I think he'll have more fun this year.
So the highlights for this week have been the interviews I've seen and overheard people getting. It's nice to walk into the back rooms and hear professional interviews over the phone. However, I like it even better when I overhear staffers asking for a partner to go with them on an interview. I can't wait to see how this impacts the reporting and story writing.
The T-Shirts are practically ordered. I lost the guy's card so that put a little delay in the works. However, I found the information I needed tonight, so the order will be emailed tomorrow morning. Yea!
I think that's about it for this week. Next week ought to be fun with our first layout and our first 5-day week!
It's had a wonderful effect. I think I have 11 people going to the University of Illinois Press Day this year. It's a good conference and a quick one. Last year I only had one student go. We had a great time, but I felt bad for Dan that he had to spend the entire day hanging out with me. I think he'll have more fun this year.
So the highlights for this week have been the interviews I've seen and overheard people getting. It's nice to walk into the back rooms and hear professional interviews over the phone. However, I like it even better when I overhear staffers asking for a partner to go with them on an interview. I can't wait to see how this impacts the reporting and story writing.
The T-Shirts are practically ordered. I lost the guy's card so that put a little delay in the works. However, I found the information I needed tonight, so the order will be emailed tomorrow morning. Yea!
I think that's about it for this week. Next week ought to be fun with our first layout and our first 5-day week!
