Paw Prints

Have you ever thought about a newspaper that combines news from a high school, an elementary school, and the town? Glenmora High School, a small-town school, plans to create just such a newspaper. It is to be published by a newspaper publications class beginning in the 2008-2009 school year. GHS, which is located in Central Louisiana, has approximately three hundred students enrolled in grades 7-12 and one hundred eighty students in grades 9-12. Our school has a diverse student population with minority population of thirty-seven percent. Of this thirty-seven percent, thirteen percent are Hispanic, twenty percent are black, two percent are American Indian, and two percent are Asian. Each of these ethnic groups will be included on the newspaper staff to create a truly multi-cultural publication.

Brian Parmley, the new principal of Glenmora Elementary and Glenmora High School, plans to start this newspaper publications class next fall. The class will be responsible for gathering and publishing news and information from Glenmora Elementary School, Glenmora High School, and the town of Glenmora. Mr. Parmley hopes to offset the cost of publishing the newspaper by selling ads to local merchants and charging a small fee for the paper, which will be sold at the schools and by the post office, bank, and other local businesses.

This publications class will be the perfect opportunity for our students to shine. Our minority students will include informative articles about cultural events in their communities. The computer-minded students will add custom graphics and include technical advice and technical news columns, and the Model United Nations organization will provide current events. Our athletes will contribute to the sports sections of the paper, while our STAR (Students Teaching and Reaching) will provide an insight into the teaching profession and the workings of the classroom.

“No Child Left Behind” strongly encourages schools to include the community in the daily operations and events of the school community. It also encourages schools to use community resources. This publications class will accomplish that goal. Local history will be collected by interviewing parents, grandparents, and family friends. Interviews will be recorded in a section of the publication. Our class will keep a digital copy and a printed version of each newspaper.

As the current co-webmaster of Glenmora High School’s website (http://www.rapides.k12.la.us/ghs/index.htm) and the webmaster of my technology classes’ website (http://www.rapides.k12.la.us/ghs/tilley/), I know it will be possible for us to publish our news content at some point. By taking this next step, we will be able to use the multimedia class, which is already a part of the GHS technology curricula, to include videos of interviews in our online paper.

As the teacher of this class, I can confidently teach students to write articles and to conduct interviews. I can teach them about the key elements of newspaper publication, including reporting, editing, photojournalism, layout and design, editorial pages that express opinions, business skills, and the ethics and responsibilities that journalists must consider. Preparing students to publish a quality newspaper of which the school and the community can be proud is just the beginning. To complete this goal we must have tools. We will need software, such as Tool Factory’s MultiMedia Lab V and The Tool Factory Workshop, and we will need digital cameras.

Our publications class will have to use the one Sony Mavica camera that is housed in the school’s media center. Since this camera is constantly in demand, having one or more digital cameras for the exclusive use of the publications class will allow our student reporters to create a newspaper that will meet the highest journalistic standards.

Educational Goals:
1-develop critical thinking skills
2-learn proper pring layout and design
3-learn proper use of a digital camera
4-learn to edit and manipulate digital images
5-develop media literacy skills
6-develop organizational and business skills

Project:
Each six weeks students will work together to create a newspaper that combines news from the high school, the elementary school, and the town. It will reflect the interests of the diverse student and town populations.

Material Resources:
1-digital Cameras to record photos for the newspaper
2-Tool Factory Workshop
3-Tool Factory's Multimedia Lab V
4-USB/Jump/Flash Drives