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Words of the Wise:
National High School Journalism Teachers of the Year Share their Secrets
of Success Give each staff member an
alphabetical list of staff names, addresses, phone numbers, and e-mail
addresses—saves communicating with the adviser after hours and aids in
helping each other. At the beginning of the year give
each staff member and the principal a schedule chart for each issue,
including: day and dates for the news meeting, ad list deadline and
layout, news and photo assignment deadline, first drafts, revised
stories, press nights, distribution, bills, and exchange papers out. For ad copy, make a year’s chart
by month---blanks for name of advertiser, size of ad, and in last
columns, amount due, paid, total. This gives a panorama for the year and
comparison of revenues from year to year. Post a list of contests for the
year and due dates in each month. Put a staffer in charge of keeping
track and readying entries. Have a regular reporter assigned
to cover PTA meetings and write a report for the PTA newsletter. This
reporter serves as a liaison between the school paper and PTA, which
provides a source for funds or equipment for the school newspaper at the
end of-year fund distribution. Have a regular reporter assigned
to cover the principal before each issue—provides a good source of news,
makes principal more aware of paper and job Develop a handbook with a job
description of each position so a staffer knows his/her
responsibilities. Following the previous tip,
formulate a contract, signed by each staff member at the beginning of
the year, to protect the adviser if a student has to be fired. Build or buy a pigeon hole mailbox
for the newspaper office and paste each staffer’s name on a box. This
increases pride in work, provides communication with each other and is a
means for the adviser to return corrected stories, etc. Develop a list of sports verbs
alphabetically, distribute to staff, and post one on the newspaper
office bulletin board. Avoids overuse of “beat.” Advisers, copy all fan mail
letters, particularly those of parents, and put them in your official
folder in the school office. When your evaluation rolls around, you have
ammunition to counteract any quirky letters sent to the principal. |
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From Wayne Brasler, 1981 Have a dream. All the top advisers
in scholastic journalism history have tenaciously pursued an individual
vision of student publications. Be aware of what’s going on in the
field, and do value ratings and honors as measurements of what you are
accomplishing, but chase that dream. It’s the adventure that gives
flower to all else. You need to know how to do it
before you can teach your students how to do it. Beginning advisers need
to get in there and do the work with the staff, experience the
satisfaction, panic, disappointment, disorder, and triumph of doing
student publications. Only when you’ve done it can you appreciate what
your students are going through. As the years go by, you can remove
yourself more and more from the process until you are strictly advising. Know the past. The history of
scholastic journalism is remarkably rich and often surprising. School
papers of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s in some ways are equal to the best
being done today. There’s a heritage there to build upon. Keep your eyes firmly fixed on the
future. In scholastic journalism, like pop music, you’re only as big as
your last hit. And you are always auditioning. When you’ve done
something great, you’ve done it. It’s time to do something else great. Keep moving, keep changing, keep
taking chances. It’s the students’ publication.
Words we say a lot in our field, but don’t often live by. You must
insist on legalities and quality, but you really must let editors make
the decisions about content, editorial positions and direction. You can
argue all you want, but in the end, if it’s legal and it passes the
quality test, the publications must belong to the students. It’s the
only way they really, truly learn. Let students learn from their
errors, but try not to let the errors be multiplied by the press run. Do
whatever you can to catch factual errors, potential libel and bad
writing so editors can tackle the problems and solve them before
publication. They learn from the experience without you and them
spending hours in the principal’s office, or worse. Beware the cookie cutter. Has
anyone else noticed that hundreds of high school papers today look the
same and are virtually interchangeable? In a field once famed for being
ahead of daily press design by some 20 or 30 years, “following the
rules” has become the standard. But, interestingly, the best papers are
often the most individual (I’m thinking particularly of the Little Hawk
from Iowa City, Iowa). Our field badly needs an infusion of fresh
design. Maybe you’re the adviser to bring it in. Administrators are our friends. A
friendly, honest and open relationship with your principal is well worth
building and nurturing. Your principal has enough worries and pressures
without student publications being one of them. The editors should be
meeting regularly with administrators to talk over story ideas and get
their reactions to and advice for student publications. Administrators
need to be a part of the publishing team, not potential adversaries or
censors. Know the law. You do get the
Student Press Law Center magazine, don’t you? |
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From H.L. Hall, 1982 Maintain a positive attitude.
Praise often. I once read that 90 percent of the friction of daily life
is caused by the wrong tone of voice. Research has shown it takes 40
positive comments on the average to overcome one negative comment.
People remember the negatives, but they tend to forget the positive. Don’t look for failures. Be Firm,
be Fair, be Flexible. Those are the only three F’s an adviser should be
concerned about. Good supervision is the art of giving someone a shot in
the arm without letting him or her feel the needle. Keep an open mind. Be an active
listener. Every staff member’s ideas should be respected. Every staff
member should have a voice in all decisions. A publication is not the
adviser’s, nor is it the editor’s. It belongs to all staff members who
are creating it for the readers. Recognizing failure is often the
first step necessary toward success. Help staff members learn from their
mistakes. Most individuals who try something new usually mess up. Help
them realize that a critique by some judge is not the end of the world
if it is not totally positive. Learn and grow. Maintain a good sense of humor.
Laughter helps release tension, it promotes retention and it creates
attention. It would be impossible to survive a year as an adviser
without a sense of humor. Do everything with enthusiasm.
It’s contagious! If an adviser loses his/her enthusiasm for a
publication, the staff will also lose its enthusiasm. Being excited
about every aspect of the publication is important. Never give up on anybody. Continue
to encourage those staff members who do not meet with instant success.
Without encouragement, staff members may quit. With encouragement,
hidden talent may come to the forefront. Patience is an important
virtue. Be a coach, but don’t be a player.
Make suggestions and critique the outcome, but don’t make the plays. A
math teacher would not solve the problems for his/her students. Neither
should a journalism teacher solve the problems for his/her students.
Students should do the work on a publication, not the adviser. The
adviser should advise, not write the copy, create the designs, or take
the photographs. At the same time, the adviser must be competent in all
journalistic areas to be able to offer sound advice. Help staff members stretch their
minds. Urge them to try something different, something they have never
ever seen done in another publications. However, always urge them to do
everything journalistically well. A successful adviser is a planter of
ideas and a developer of imaginations. Staff members should create and
finalize their ideas; not the adviser or some other adult like the
yearbook company representative. Be a motivator. Have fun! Lead the
staff in a rousing cheer. Celebrate birthdays. Dress up for special
occasions. Make up words to songs and sing them. Shake a pica, shake a
pica. Shake a pole, shake a pole.Takes a mighty fine publication to
satisfy my soul! Get a little bit crazy. |
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From John Bowen, 1983 Student working knowledge of law
and ethics should be evident in all areas of student learning and
production, from information gathering, reporting and coaching, to
visual creation and production. Encourage student journalists to
“question authority” in all they do. How else can they gather adequate
information? Encourage, reinforce and
recommend. Positive support fosters student growth. Establish the desire for more
information in terms of what you produce. Encourage a thirst for more
ideas and access to them. Stress content above image. Create
designs to supplement and enhance the content. Your publication is the guardian
of the First Amendment and not just for those students. You give life to
the parchment it’s written on and help readers know its importance. Student success comes in many
guises and at many levels in journalism. Give all students a chance to
reach that goal. Create a forum for all to voice
their thoughts, desires and philosophies. Then, listen as well as
comment. Lead not only editorially, but in coverage. Challenge your readers to be informed. |
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From John Cutsinger, 1987 Make a wish. Every year set
realistic, attainable goals with ways to measure your personal and
professional growth success. Make a difference. Know that your
involvement with your publications staff(s) members changes their lives
and that they reciprocate in making you a different person. Make friends. Nurture a
kind-spirited, mutually respectful relationship with staff members,
their parents, fellow teachers, administrators and peer advisers across
the country. Make time. Never get so caught up
in a moment that you don’t have time for the little things that mean a
lot---things like a thoughtful word, a random act of kindness. Make lists. Keep yourself and your
staff organized by making “to-do” lists. Reward yourself by checking off
those items accomplished, so that at the end of the day you feel good
about what you have done. Make educated choices. Think
through as many consequences of a decision and weigh how all the
individuals it touches will be affected before making it final. Make do. That’s right. Use what
you have or do something constructive about it. Complaining rarely
resolves inadequacy in people, time, equipment, or supplies issues. Make sense. Say what you say, do
what you do for all the right reasons. Don’t let anyone ask “why?” Build
that into your reasonable approach to advising. Make waves. When it bests your
program and your staff members, move to the cutting edge. Read
everything on the subject, go to conventions to raise the quality bar of
your publications. Make merry. Above all, create and
maintain an environment in which you and those around you feel good
about themselves and what they do. |
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From Jack Harkrider, 1987 One of the best things about
teaching journalism is we have the opportunity to teach so much more
than subject matter. We can teach life! Take advantage of it! Always
find something to praise in every student. You'll be amazed at the
results . . . or maybe you won’t, but it will make a difference in their
lives. Don’t try to accomplish it all in
one year. Success is built over a number of years. If you can improve
just two or three things a year, you’re doing a great job. Do things for yourself on a
regular basis. Attend an opera, read a sleazy paperback, have dinner
with a friend, build a hang glider, smoke a cigar, start a garage band,
whatever. If you don’t, you’ll turn into an old grouch or witch, then
you won’t be worth a flip to anyone, especially your students. Write, photograph, design for your
audience, not judges. Work to produce the best and be the best, and the
awards and recognition will come. Trust me on this. You have to have a staff manual
that includes a production schedule, organizational chart, job
descriptions and responsibilities, and a style sheet, or you and your
staff will produce mediocre publications and y’all will go crazy doing
it. Build rewrite time and screw-up
time into your production schedule ‘cause nothing ever goes the way you
plan it, so you might as well plan for it. Don’t be afraid to ask for help or
seek a shoulder to cry on. All of us have been there, done that, and the
greatest times in our lives are when we can help others. We carry extra
tissues. Your students will learn more from
what they do wrong, than what they do right. But don’t play “gotcha.”
Encourage their creativity and effort, then, when they screw up, help
them learn from it, get over it, and encourage them to rush on to the
next mistake. After all, what’s high school for, anyway? Don’t be afraid to make a mistake
yourself and don’t be afraid to get weird at times. When you’re willing
to display your warts in public and laugh about them, it |
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From Bob Button, 1988 Have fun! There is nothing more
exciting than watching young people grow and mature, at least partially
because of your interaction with them. When work, even work as demanding
as journalism, is fun, no one notices that it’s work. Readers come first! The best
publications serve the staff because they really serve the readers, not
because they are built on the staff’s interests and friendships. You have to know the school. If
you are going to serve the entire school community, you have to know who
those people are, where they come from, what Good journalistic writing is built
not on what the reader knows, but on what the reader does not know. When
publications come out long after the news has already reached the
readers, the why and how are often the only angles really new. While officers in student
government often do little more than plan homecoming and their own
re-elections, the student newspaper should be students’ strongest voice
in the leadership for the school. Often that leadership comes more from
information than from opinion, but editors might find more success with
editorials if they think less about criticism and more about problem
solving. At a time when moral and ethical
values are under assault, publications offer one of the very best
opportunities to teach values. The question is seldom, “What can we
print?” but “What should we print?” and “How do we best serve our
readers?” No matter how great the challenge
or excitement of modern technology as it relates to publication design,
the content comes first. The purpose of design is to draw attention to
content. It’s backward when the content is planned to fill the design. One of the greatest failings in
advertising design is that too often ads are designed for the
advertiser, rather than for the reader. Good ads think reader first,
advertiser last, building on a plan to attract, sell, clinch and
support. Don’t rely exclusively on the school’s best and brightest. Yes, if committed, they can bring tremendous talent. But a student who really wants to do it is far more valuable and will gain more from the experience than one who dabbles in everything the school has to offer. Sometimes, the best staff members
are unwilling to put themselves forward and needs encouragement to get
involved. A staff that reflects the
diversity of the school is much more apt to produce a publication that
serves the diversity of the school. |
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From Candace Perkins Bowen, 1989 Emphasize press law and ethics so
students learn not only what they COULD publish or broadcast, but are
able to evaluate what they SHOULD do as well. Be a role model for everything from writing with multiple drafts to treating others with respect. Focus on the process and the
product will take care of itself. Set high standards for students
and encourage them to do the same for themselves. Teach students to critically
evaluate their work and use what they find to keep improving. Provide opportunities and supply
strategies for using teamwork. Emphasize the importance of collaboration
in many settings. Value the right of others to speak
their minds and listen to what they say. Encourage students to do the
same. Reward the traits that matter:
tenacity, dependability, creativity, adaptability, critical thinking,
cooperation, etc . . . then learn how to bake turtle brownies as a
tangible expression. Continue to retrain and rejuvenate
yourself and your students through workshops, conventions, classes,
READING and studying other media. |
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From Steve O’Donoghue, l990 Read everything you can printed on
paper, regardless of format. Use the best as models for
students (e.g., Molly Ivins). Keep your students focused; cover
the news, not just the fads. Teach tolerance, fairness,
objectivity by example. You’re the coach, they're the
players; you don’t go into the game to play for them. When you and the students mess up
journalistically, remind your administrator that it is “a teachable
moment.” Make a habit of tearing good
models of writing and design from newspapers and magazines.You won’t
remember everything. The First Amendment (freedom of
speech) is most important when what students write is most offensive to
you. SAT scores don’t necessarily
predict the contribution a student will make to a publication. |
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From Gloria Olman, 1992 Advise; don’t do. The publications
must be the students’ work and their responsibility. If they know you
will do it, they won’t. Stress professionalism in every
aspect of publication activity. Set high expectations for staff and
challenge them to achieve. Remember that good enough is the
enemy of excellence. However, know when to say when---for student work,
and your own health and sanity. Little things do matter, from
small details to treats and small pats on the back. Nurture ownership. The more
students understand that the publications belong to them, the more pride
and effort they will put forth. Promote program successes. This
will help to build the program, help the community to recognize the
integrity of scholastic journalism and thwart censorship. Join scholastic journalism groups.
This helps to build a peer network, strengthen individual programs and
identify a support system. Take a break. Have a party once in
awhile to celebrate the little things. |
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From Jack Kennedy, 1993 Steal, or adapt, whichever term
you prefer, from the best advisers you can find. Read all the
professional journals, attend state and national conventions.You are not
alone. The number one responsibility of a
school paper is to help readers be more effective students, better
informed citizens and less confused humans. Your paper is the Readers’
Guide to Your High School. Just like a football coach going
over game tapes, you should carefully critique each issue with the
staff. This is the single most important educational moment Find ways to distribute the paper
without charge. And make sure hundreds of copies get into the community
through grocery stores, banks, etc. How else can the The standards for the use of our
language don’t change with age. Keep pushing for correctness of
expression---and it doesn’t matter if they are only sophomores. Find ways to flatten your
organizational chart. They’re all high school students, after all, and
they all deserve a shot at some power. There had better be fun in the
newspaper, fun in your class, and fun in your heart. The work is too
hard if you’re not having fun. Buy two class sets of books: The
Radical Write (Bobby Hawthorne), and Newspaper Designer’s Handbook (Tim
Harrower). Make everyone memorize them. Be tight with custodians and
secretaries, the true powers in any school. Be a true “amateur,” that is, love
what you do. |
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From Merle Dieleman, 1996 Don’t use a textbook. Develop your
own curriculum based on your needs for publications. Don’t require a journalism class
in order for students to work on publications. Many students are
prepared to do this without a formal class. Make your yearbook or newspaper
production a class with full credit. Let students teach students. You
don’t have to be the only teacher. Don’t expect to be an expert on
everything. Students often are more adept with computers or photography
than you will ever be. Let the kids do it. Students
should have the responsibility of all aspects of producing a yearbook
and/or newspaper. Relinquish control. Educate them and then trust them. Don’t censor yourselves. If
someone wants to censor your publications, let him do it, not you. Advertise all successes. If a
student or the adviser wins something, make sure it gets in the local
media. Don’t sweat the small stuff. Both
students and advisers should take their jobs seriously, but not
themselves. Many people in authority positions in education take student
publications much too seriously, as far as content is concerned. |
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From Kathleen Zwiebel, 1998 Honor kids on their birthdays with
something simple, but do it in front of the entire staff so everybody
hollers, “Happy Birthday!” Run an awards PUB Board once a
week. Editors nominate staffers for Staffer, photographers for
Photographer, etc., of the Week. Ribbons are given out on Fridays. Conduct leadership training
sessions in the beginning of the school year for your editors, showing
them how to organize their time and work, plus how to deal with various
personnel situations which may arise. Keep a graphic portfolio box. Have
students clip best headlines, pulled quotes, oversize initials, etc.,
various graphic elements. Divide by category and keep on file. Designers
use them for inspiration. Conduct a Candidate’s School for
new staffers after they are selected. Editors do “basic training” for
them. Form a parent booster group,
Parents of Publications Students (POPS). They raise money for a year-end
banquet and take care of all the details, plus provide Editors compile a weekly update
that includes deadlines by staff, coverage assignments, fund-raisers,
sporting event shooting dates, upcoming convention info, and staff
birthdays for the week. Distribute on Mondays. This will get you
organized for the week. Have editors turn in a weekly
status report (what we accomplished, what we did not complete yet,
editor comments, and adviser comments) for their staffs which the
adviser responds to with positive reinforcement. Maintain a sense of humor! You
cannot exist as a publications adviser without one. Compiled by Jack Harkrider, Anderson High School, Austin, Texas |