How many HATS do JOURNALISM teachers wear? Teacher
Journalism advisers teach writing, design, photography, broadcasting, law and ethics, First Amendment, advertising, website creation and publication – even if the publication is an after-school activity.
Businessperson
Journalism teachers are held accountable for some of the largest budgets in the school. Yearbooks cost in the tens of thousands of dollars – at the minimum – to produce, and teachers must keep track of book sales and ad sales.
Lawyer
Journalism teachers must stay up to date on legal and ethical issues involving publications and education, including copyright, invasion of privacy, freedom of expression, censorship, defamation, obscenity and indecency, liability, reporter’s privilege, the Freedom of Information law, and advertising and business concerns.
Statistician
Team scores / scoreboards should be in the yearbook, not to mention the names of all sports and club members.
Counselor
Journalism teachers have to make sure their staffs work as a team during the long hours it takes to create a publication. This can be challenging when the editor and assistant editor hate each other, or the boygriend and girlfriend on staff have a nasty break-up, or when siblings on staff decide to have a major fight.
Diplomat
When a teacher or parent has a complaint about a publication, the journalism teacher runs interference to fairly evaluate the complaint while supporting the students and providing the opportunity for a learning experience.
The Kettle Moraine Press Association wants to help your journalism teacher. Here’s how: • KEMPA offers college scholarships to graduating seniors. • KEMPA offers an exceptional four-day summer workshop for students in newspaper, yearbook, photojournalism, literary magazine and online publishing. • KEMPA hosts a fall conference at UW-Whitewater for students and advisers. It includes instructional sessions, publication, awards and networking opportunities for advisers at the luncheon. • KEMPA can connect new advisers with experienced Journalism Education Association mentors for two years of support. • KEMPA honors administrators, teachers, media and friends of journalism each year who best exemplify those who care about scholastic journalism. • KEMPA hosts a Winter Advisers Seminar the first full weekend in March, featuring nationally known keynote speakers and the opportunity to obtain college credit for the experience. • KEMPA maintains a website with links to resources and other organizations: www.kempaonline.com.
Tip your hat to
scholastic journalism Good journalism programs teach
critical thinking skills Students must not only gather information for their stories but also verify that information. They must also be sure to get all sides of every story. Then they must evaluate the information and decide what is relevant and what is not. Once they’ve done that, they must present the information in a way that readers will find interesting. No other program gives students more opportunity to develop their critical thinking skills.
Think Positive If someone criticizes the publication for minor mistakes, tell them to be sure to praise the staff members for everything they did correctly. That way the positive will outweigh the negative.
Let the teacher do the coaching Just as a hard-working football team sometimes makes a turnover, a talented newspaper staff will occasionally misspell a word or make a mistake. Consider how you would approach a coach or team and approach the newspaper adviser and staff in a similar fashion. Support your journalism team just as you do your football team.
Just as real journalists produce real newspapers,
real newspapers develop real journalists As much as possible, school publications should be student-run. This way students feel ownership of the publication and will care more about it and, therefore, do a better job. You will end up with a product everyone can brag about.
Good journalism programs meet
Common Core State Standards Common Core: College and career readiness anchor standards for writing Text types & purposes • Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence. [editorials/columns/ reviews] • Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content. [in-depth news, features] • Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective techniques, well-chosen details and well-structured event sequences. [narrative features, literary magazine submissions] Production and distribution • Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. [any journalism] • Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach. [editorial process – including possible alternative story forms] • Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and to interact and collaborate with others. [layout, website, social media] Range of writing • Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) [publication cycle] • Write routinely over shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences. [web publishing for newspaper, newsmagazine, literary magazine, or yearbook]
Common Core: College and career readiness anchor standards for reading informational texts Key ideas and details • Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. [analysis of source material and research] • Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; [analysis of documents, websites for news, feature, opinion stories] Craft and structure • Determine an author’s point of view or purpose in a text and analyze how an author uses rhetoric to advance that point of view or purpose. [analysis of persuasive writing for editorials, columns and reviews] Integration of knowledge and ideas • Analyze various accounts of a subject told in different mediums (e.g., a person’s life story in both print and multimedia), determining which details are emphasized in each account. [differences between print, online, visual media] • Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, assessing whether the reasoning is valid and the evidence is relevant and sufficient; identify false statements and fallacious reasoning. [evaluating source material] Range of reading • Read and comprehend literary nonfiction at the high end of the text complexity band independently and proficiently. [biographical, scientific, political, historical reading of the work of journalists in the past century]
Journalism programs demonstrate
21st Century Student Skills Learning and Innovation Skills • Creativity and Innovation [developing story approaches, layout and design, infographics, theme development] • Critical Thinking and Problem Solving [understanding and explaining complex story topics, especially in analysis and editorials] • Communication and Collaboration [writers working with sources; writers, editors, photographers, and designers collaborating on story planning] Information, Media and Technology Skills • Information Literacy [researching background for stories] • Media Literacy [using videography and photography to convey information or tell a story] • ICT (Information, Communications and Technology) Literacy [creating and updating website, using social media, using desktop publishing and digital photo editing] Life and Career Skills • Flexibility and Adaptability [changing interview appointments, covering last-minute news or events, revising stories and layout] • Initiative and Self-Direction [deciding on content, design and production schedule; taking charge of breaking stories without waiting to be told] • Social and Cross-Cultural Skills [interviewing varied sources, soliciting submissions for literary magazine] • Productivity and Accountability [developing and following a production schedule while meeting deadlines] • Leadership and Responsibility [training new staff members while meeting own deadlines and doing exemplary work]