Journalism: Newspaper & Yearbook

My Newspaper & Yearbook staffs are currently accepting applications for the 2016-2017 school year. Each staff created a commercial to share with the school asking student to apply. I absolutely love how they turned out so differently!

Lucid Press & School Newspaper

This is my third year as the Newspaper Sponsor. We have definitely grown a great deal over the years! When the staff has handed to me, they only posted short (1-3 sentence) stories with a photo to a Facebook page separate from the school's main Facebook page. Now they write 250+ word stories weekly with at least five photos and two quotes and publish an e-newsletter monthly. This is in addition to keeping the main school Facebook page, Instagram page, and website up to date. We are busy bees!

e-Newsletter VS Paper

I am constantly asked about our decision to produce an e-newsetter instead of a paper newsletter. While all schools have different needs, the e-newsletter is the perfect fit for our school! We use Lucid Press to publish our newsletter. This program allows students to hold different account, share documents, and work collaboratively. It also has a chat room and comment area. As the teacher, I can login to review work and leave comment or make changes as needed.  

Once the e-newsletter is complete, it can be published then shared via link or embedded into another site. We embed it onto the school homepage and send a link to parents and students.

Since we are a 1:1 school, students can access the e-newsletter from the MacBook Air. We are cutting down on the use of paper and trash in our school - while also reaching a larger audience. (In the middle school setting, very few flyers make it all the way home.) The use of the e-newsletter also keeps us from having any cost in newsletter production!

Check out our first e-newsletter from the 2015-2016 school year!

Do you run the newspaper staff at your school? I would love to collaborate! 

Newspaper & Yearbook Field Trip

I have a newspaper staff of nine students and a yearbook staff of twelve students. These kids are ah-mazing! I really can not brag enough on these students. Both staffs are student center and student led. The all have wonderful attitudes and motivation. They work extremely hard and produce amazing work!

My newspaper staff writes weekly articles about the school and community. Their work is published in a blog on the school website and submitted to local newspapers and news stations. They are publicly published each month! Each month they put together an interactive e-newsletter of the articles they have written. My newspaper editor (eighth grade student) keeps track of each staff member's progress and edits articles before they get to me. 

My yearbook staff runs without me. The editor (eighth grade student) was on the staff last year. Last year (as a seventh grader) she designed the theme, cover, colors, and fonts for this year's yearbook. She also sat with our yearbook rep and ordered the yearbooks. The staff splits up the one hundred full color yearbook, so everyone is responsible for specific pages. They have been rocking out deadlines this year! Meeting them weeks before they are due! I am so proud!

To reward all of their hard work, we recently took a field trip! We toured a local news station. My students were able to speak with reporters, photographers, and producers. They were given a tour of the station with many behind the scene looks. It was a blast! It was a wonderful way to put into perspective how what they do in the classroom is relevant in the real world. 

We finished our trip with a lunch at Steak and Shake. Everyone was happy!

My newspaper staff has the idea of creating video articles with written articles. They hope to display photos, interviews, and footage from events. I can't wait to see how these turn out this semester!