Organizing the news staff is a daunting task for a high school newspaper adviser. It is a job that has to be done because if every student had the same responsibilities, there would likely be endless student disagreements about decisions on everything from what "witty" student-drawn political cartoon to run to whether Paris Hilton should be the lead story on the front page.
Alan Weintraut, 2006 Dow Jones Newspaper Fund's Teacher of the Year, shared a video of his newspaper editors giving a tour of his school newspaper's production lab. (Admission time--I'm very jealous of the size of the lab, the technology at his disposal, and the obviously excited and energetic students in the class). The lab appeared to have a purposeful layout and a function for each area.
I was impressed by the materials Weintraut shared and plan to adopt many of the same materials in my classroom in the fall. Specifically, I will develop a flowchart that reflects the hierarchy of student leader positions. Hopefully this will eliminate some of the workflow issues. I am frequently asked to edit student work before editors read it. Hopefully the visual representation will remind students that the EDITORS edit, the adviser advises.
Trampus Willis
South Side High School
Fort Wayne, Ind.
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I think I will post a flow chart in my classroom simply to remind myself that editors edit and the adviser advises. The grammar cop in me always wants to edit the stories before they pass through the chain of command to catch all those grammatical things that sometimes slip into final layouts. Inevitably whenever I edit a copy for grammar I wind up commenting on just about everything. My very diligent copy editor this year was very patient with me. Next year I will actively work towards backing off a bit.
ReplyDeleteAshley Barnes
Bel Air High School
Bel Air, Md.
Last year I actually made a poster that read:
ReplyDeleteMr. Fencl
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AV (Editor in Chief)
/ / / /
Op Editor Sports Ed Knight Life Ed Photo Ed
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Reporters and Photographers
I did this because kids were leapfrogging the chain of command and reporters would go straight to the editor in chief with a question, or editors would come to me without talking to the editor in chief. Our kids have specific jobs for a reason and should take on all of the duties for that job. It seemed with Alan's class, the kids had taken ownership and were running the show, but it also showed that they knew where their adviser was whenever they needed him. That's a good balance I think (hope) I have achieved with my students.
Jeff Fencl
Del Norte High School
Albuquerque, N.M.
Installing a chain of command and having students follow it is preparing them for life.
ReplyDeleteThose at the bottom of the food chain (so to speak) know to go to the next higher-up and so on. Eventually things reach the top.
The flowcharts showing the evolution of his staff was a good lesson on how to keep things flexible and allow for changes as needed.
Mark Webber
Vidal M. Treviño School of Communications and Fine Arts
http://my.hsj.org/tx/laredo/vmt
Laredo, Texas