Someone found this blog, saw in my profile that I'd taught high school journalism, and asked me if they could ask me some questions about it.
Since I wouldn't have survived as a journalism teacher (or as a teacher, for that matter!) if I hadn't asked a bajillion questions of kind, patient colleagues, I am always glad to pass on what I've learned - which, unfortunately, not every veteran teacher is willing to do as a help to poor idealistic novices. I love being able to share what I learned the hard way, to help minimize the painful trial and error of others! The knowledge shared here is from four years of teaching a foundational journalism class grades 9-11, four years of advising a high school newspaper staff, and 1 1/2 years of advising a high school yearbook staff. Not a LOT of experience - but just enough!
So, this being the end of the school year, I was asked about choosing article topics, final exams, and portfolios. If you would like more details, please let me know!
It sounds like the kids who are in the class don't necessarily want to be there.... Do they really want to take the class, or is it one of those unfortunate dumping grounds for kids who didn't get into the elective of their choice? Also, do you actually have a printed product that's distributed, or is it like creative writing class, where they just turn in work whose only "audience" is you? That will make a difference in how you go about things.
When I took over the journalism program at my school, I followed a fantastic teacher who had decades of experience, so the kids I inherited were serious about what they were doing (not to mention, the first year I advised, they also knew more than me!).
Our school had a not very common approach: we had a pre-requisite Journalism class that students had to take in order to be accepted into the Newspaper or Yearbook classes (to prevent it from being a dumping ground; our guidance department was very good about sticking to this rule). I taught the Journalism class as well as the NP & YB classes.
To answer your question about how topics are chosen - this student newspaper was very student-driven (makes less work for the adviser that way!), with the adviser having absolute, final oversight over everything, of course. But the students knew if they wanted their peers to read any of it, it had to be interesting. AND they had also already learned (in the pre-requisite Journalism class) about "what is news" and how to identify it, honing the skill of deciding what people will find interesting to read, as well as what is important to present. (For example, even though high school kids may not find the war in Iraq interesting, it IS news, and needs to be covered somehow at some point; so the challenge for a conscientious staff is to find an angle on the war that will interest their peers, and answer the big question, "Why should they care?".)
Only occasionally did I step in and say "I think you should include ___ topic." (More often, it was gently leading them to consider topics that would be of interest to the majority of the student body!)
If you have students who were sort of dumped in the class, and it's not really because they want to be in journalism class, I would do this first step yourself: scour around and find maybe 20 topics that cover the different sections - sports, news, features (the biggest category of all, because it's basically "anything and everything"), entertainment, and opinion/editorial. Have those as a backup.
Get magazines and newspapers from the library AND tell the kids as a HW assignment that they have to bring in at least 1 magazine or newspaper (or 2-3, depending on the economic background of the kids - and always offer to help out any kids with this, if they need it).
Then put them into small groups and have each group look through what was brought and, as a group, list 5 potential ideas they glean from looking through the materials (1 idea for sports, 1 for an opinion piece, 1 for entertainment - the easy one for them!, 1 for news and 2 feature ideas; make sure they know what these types of articles are!).
If you don't think students are able to bring in the magazines & newspapers on their own, then use the ones from the library. Then each group can go around and share their ideas. Generate ideas that way, if they won't do it on their own at home (I DID have problems with some students who obviously didn't do their homework of coming up with 5 ideas - it is very obvious, when they have nothing to say in front of their peers!).
That's one of the beauties of newspaper/yearbook classes: because the product is a team effort, when one person slacks, it makes everyone look bad. So the students hold each other accountable, not just you the adviser.
With a portfolio, ideally, the portfolio would be compiled all year, and include a paste-up of everything they have written that YEAR, including anything they designed, graphics created, photos taken THAT WERE PUBLISHED, if someone helped write just a headline, etc. As they compiled it all year, they would be responsible for writing up a brief analysis of each item (good points, bad points, even comments from others, what they could do to improve next time, etc.). The portfolio would be collected at the end of each grading period.
If you're already at the end of the year, I would have them do the above analysis only for the most recent/last issue; I'm a picky person, so I also require them to have it be neat, typed, creative, etc. because as journalists, details like that are also important (it's about the whole package, the presentation).
And, to help you with the grading (though they don't have to know that's the purpose!), if you feel comfortable and think the kids won't be shy about speaking honestly when evaluating, you can have them evaluate each other's portfolios, using a simple but comprehensive rubric, so they know what things to look for and to judge them on. (You can also offer a decent prize to the person with the best portfolio as more motivation). This peer evaluation can take place during exam review week, if your school has that, and students can be working on completing the portfolio after the last issue of the newspaper is done; this is what can "fill the time" until school ends.
For exams, I do something different at the end of the fall semester than the spring, because Christmas break usually falls in the middle of the production cycle. For the spring semester, I usually gave an easier exam because I was overloaded and more worried about writing the exams for my English classes.
The essay-format exam is easy for them to do and easy for you to grade (so they don't need to review or study for it - part of the perks of working hard all year and being in an elective class). It takes them almost an hour to complete the exam (well, the people who answer seriously), and I tell them they have to FILL at least one sheet of notebook paper, front AND back (or 2 fronts) or I won't even accept the "completed" exam from them. The exam is basically a comprehensive evaluation of their own work, progress, and product, an evaluation of the staff's productivity and the newspaper's improvement (or lack of), and considerations and goals for the next year.
Keep in mind, though, the main reason I allowed the exam to be this easy is because, since they had to take the pre-requisite Journalism class, I know they know basic newspaper/journalism skills already. If they don't answer the exam questions completely (like if a question has 3 parts and they only answered the first part), then I grade accordingly; it's more of a completion grade.
(If I'd had more time to write more of an exam for NP class, I would have also added a short portion that tested them on NP design; the journalism class has to cover so much that we don't have much time to go over NP-specific design. So I tried to go into much more detail on that during the NP class as the year progressed, using The Newspaper Designer's Handbook as my "textbook." I just used my own copy because it's so expensive. So I would have also added that to the NP final exam.)
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