It was refreshing to hear Marty Kaiser (pictured on right) talk about what makes an investigative reporter successful. As he discussed the keys to good reporting, it struck me that most of my students do experience those key emotions. They just need to direct those emotions to their reporting. It is important for all reporters to begin with what interests them. This interest allows their curiosity to take over, and as long as a reporter is curious, they will continue digging deeper to find out the answers to their questions.
High School students are certainly fueled by their curiosity and passion; as long as we can focus those emotions, they will be able to ask the right questions in their reporting. Activating student prior knowledge has long been a component in lesson plans, but activating that same prior knowledge to research a story will allow the students to keep digging while they search for the truth.
As Kaiser explains, good investigative reporters have to not only be willing to learn but they must also want to learn. Instilling the drive to learn in our students can often be our most difficult challenge. However, this goes back to the initial element of drawing out their curiosity. Once they become curious about something, they will stop at nothing to find out the answer to their new questions. It’s important to never stop asking questions until you are sure that all your key questions have been addressed thoroughly.
Many of our students still have quite a lot to learn about audience, but once they can understand who they are writing for, it will be a lot easier to explain why they need to make sure they’ve thoroughly researched the story. On the other hand, they will also have to learn when to let go of a story that just isn’t there. It all comes full circle to activating their curiosity and choosing a story that is engaging to them – if it interests them, it is far more likely to captivate their audience as well.
Rebecca Jackson
Douglas County High School
Douglasville, Ga.
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Many of the kids who come to my class want to affect change in their community. Some are well...ummm...a little lost. Like one lady described seeing things that are not their but I have found that if they actually put in the leg work they see there is no story. The sad thing is that sometimes it might take months to get to the point where they see that they might be a little misguided. I had one student who believed that the cheerleader's were being forced to dance in a certain way. He soon discovered that this was not the truth just through the interviews he had with the girls. He was deflated but continued to wave the "students are being wronged" banner and wanted to attack the health kids act (banning fatty or sugary foods on campus). The assistant superintendent who was in charge of implementing the policy district wide granted an interview and explained the reasoning of the change. He was not satisfied; he wrote up the line all the way to the governor and received a nice form letter to the effect that the governor was always interested in the health of young people. So he wrote to the president and never received a reply. I never got a story about the diabolical plot behind the healthy kids act, but I did get a student who exhausted every avenue open to him. Now perhaps I should have made him stop but it never affected his beat. Besides you got to love a kid that pushes the envelope to see how far he can go. I still get letters from him years later.
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