I laughed when I saw this desk. If I worked for the Arizona Republic, this is what my desk would look like. In fact, this is a reasonable facsimile of my desk at school, probably about day 3. I'm a piler. The OCD kids in my classes can't even look at my desk; it makes them break out in hives.
I so enjoyed touring through the newsroom. It was clearly a workplace. There is no reason I can't take my students on a similar trip to our local newsroom. Well, besides the whole budget cut thing. It was inspiring and energizing for me--surely it could infect my students, too. I haven't used my links to the newspaper sufficiently (i.e. at all). I shall immediately repent.
Juli Stricklan
Rigby High School
Rigby Idaho
Posts
I don't think I'm alone in the I-need-to-take-more-field-trips club, but I do manage to squeeze the annual trip to the local newsroom in every year (except this last one -- budget cuts). Our local paper, the Maui News, is a critical component of my journalism program.
ReplyDeleteFirst, they participate in an NIE program (Newspapers in Education) and donate one copy of the paper for each of my students, delivered directly to the school every morning.
Second, Marvi Emmanuel, the paper's NIE coordinator and an alumna of the school, is great about fitting in our newsroom tour on Wednesdays, when the press is printing a community weekly. On the tour, the students see the different departments and get to speak to many different staff, and Marvi always arranges for one of the staff members to give an extended presentation about his or her particular experiences. Watching the brand new press in operation, pumping out several thousand publications in short order, is always a highlight.
Third, the Maui News takes on our most dedicated journalists for 40-hour internships during their junior-senior summers. Two of my girls interned with the news editor last year. They shadowed both reporters and editors, and each wrote a news article that was published on the front page of the Sports section. This year, one of my staff photographers is shadowing one of the two photojournalists on the paper and has even had his photos printed with photo credits, including a large pictorial on the front page of Sports.
I hope I'm doing more than tooting my horn and giving a public shoutout to the Maui News. My point here is that if you are teaching journalism and haven't yet mined your local dailies as a resource, I would highly recommend putting this at the top of any j-teacher's to-do list. Just as we have learned tons from the professional speakers we have seen here at the institute, our students have lots to learn from our own local professionals.
Kye Haina
Kamehameha Schools Maui
Pukalani, Hawaii
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ReplyDeleteI, like Kye, MUST, with a capital M, take more field trips to give my students a first-hand look at what a real newsroom looks like. In fact, I have already contacted a few people at our local ABC affiliate and our daily newspaper. I think it will both enlighten the students and even motivate those "pushed into the class" by counselors.
ReplyDeleteMarc Garcia
Sunset High School
Dallas, TX