Editor Reflections | Dailycupofjo

Week 4

This week has been very productive and full and learning how to write a news story. The class has their first news story due on Monday March 11. I had each student send me draft of where they were at with the story on Wednesday. This was helpful for me to see where they need more direction what they are struggling with and it gave me a place to help direct them. The biggest problem I saw with the drafts was the youth reporters are having a hard time switching from writing a research paper mode to writing in a news style format.

As an exercise, we also did some work on mapping and diagramming a news story. I choose a New York Times article called, Posters on Teen Pregnancy Draw Fire, I thought this topic would be an interesting topic for the girls and it was a clear use of the inverted pyramid style of writing. By mapping our the lead, the 5w's how journalists attribute information to sources and use of direct quotes my hope is that by seeing a clear example they will be able to to apply this to their writing.

This is understandable and it will take practice. I have three news stories planned for this semester and I am interested in seeing their progression, the first news story is due Monday March 11th. I am excited to read the articles and get them posted on the site.

Week 5

The students/reporters turned in their news stories this week. Many of the stories were written in a research paper format. This isn't really surprising the students have been taught to write a certain way for most of their academic lives and I am excited to see them learn the skill of news writing. In an effort to help them sharpen that skill I had them do a little role playing which I call, Reporter Reporting. It goes like this:

I took an actual news story from the Chicago Tribune and then created roles for the class. I choose two students one to act as a Chicago police officer who arrived at the scene of the crime and another student who acted at the store owner, the rest of the class were reporters. I gave the police officer and store owner the facts given in the Tribune story and told them to be creative with their own details. As the rest of the class: I put my editor hat on and told them I heard about a robbery over a police scanner wanted them to interview the police officer who was on the scene and store owner for this breaking story. The reporters used some time to come up with questions. From the questions they gathered information and wrote a news story in the inverted pyramid style writing. You can see their efforts here.

The class also started to think about photojournalism. In the exercise I posted five very different photo essays and had them pick the one that spoke them the most and explain why. Here is some of what they had to say.

Asia Dodge, sophomore

Photo essay: Perfect

"I picked the perfect photo essay because i was first confused of why the would take pictures of the "imperfect beauties" because in today's society everyone has to be tall slim long hair pretty eyes nice boobs and butt. Then i read the reason of these pictures and i liked the idea behind it all. I thought it was nice how how it showed that even though you aren't perfect being you- being whole- is perfect. Your imperfection are what makes you perfect in your way. The only reason why these imperfection are imperfections is because society has made an object of perfection. But, nothing is really perfect."

Alexis Smyser

Photo Essay: A Young Fathers Balancing Act

"The photos were intriguing because they were very intimate and when you looked at them you could see the sincerity in the father's face. He seemed to really care about his young daughter, his girlfriend, and his soon to be son. He is seen in several pictures carrying his daughter and cleaning up after her which shows his attentiveness and patience."

Note: The New York Times photo essay "A Young Fathers Balancing Act" was chosen by five of the 11 responders.

This week the reporters worked on their second news story and I saw some real growth in their story ideas and rough drafts. For many of the students while working on the first news story it was very difficult to think of a an idea that was considered news worthy but this time around they came up with very profound and newsworthy ideas almost at the start. I am also very pleased with their first drafts and progress in asking questions. I however, would like to work on helping them be to better communicators, asking people for interviews and conducting an interview that yields good quotes and information for the reporters need for their articles.

Here is an example of a News Story #2 pitch

I would like to write an article about the fight from the movie 'Die Hard' in movement class.

This will make a great story because we get exclusive viewing of first class acting in our own school. This is important since we get to see students express and develop their acting talents or skills.

Two pieces of research:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stage_combat What is stage combat?

Interviews

The teacher, the audience and the actresses.

The student did come up an interesting idea but it seemed a little narrow

Here is my response to the student:

I think this could be a very interesting article. I suggest maybe your broaden your topic a bit and do a story on your movement class. You can definitely talk about the fight from the move Die Hard.
But I think it's interesting to you have access to such a unique class, in many schools they do not have access to a drama class or department.

As far as research I would search on movement class and see if you can find an academic paper on that??

I think your ideas for interviewees could be more specific. What teacher, and who else might you think could add to this article other then a general actress or audience member.

This student is a good example because while many of the many of the pitches for news story #2 were much stronger then for the first story they often seemed a little half baked. My goal for pitch #3 is the get the student to really think through their idea, is it too narrow or too broad. Is there a story they can tell?

Week 6

Click the play button to hear a Vox Pop of what reports are covering for their news story #2

This week the teen reporters spent a lot of time working on their second news stories. My main purpose this week was to help each reporter individually as some needed helped with figuring out questions, others needed helped finding an interview and others needed help with incorporating quotes. I thought the students second news story was much stronger then the first they pitched better ideas, wrote better questions and did a better job at finding research. I was most impressed by how well thought out and personal some of the news topics they choose were.

For example, I had two teen reporters interested in exploring the topic of teen pregnancy this is not surprising as teen pregnancy was a common theme in both of their lives, they each had young family members and friends who were teen moms. One of the reporters mother had her first child at 15 and by reporting on this topic it gave the reporter a chance to talk with her mom about the pregnancy in a more constructive way. These stories are now posted on the site. Check them out!

Week 7

This week the kids are focusing on photography and storytelling skills. They've been on a couple of photo hunts we've also talked about different types of angles and photography elements. Here is some of their pictures.

Week 8

This photo by senior Laura Ledesma is her working on shadows and light.

Senior Daisy Patino is working on detail and close up picture.

For this picture the students were asked to make an ordinary chair look interesting. I think they did nicely by playing with the legs of the chairs.