Installment+13

South of Denver

Chapter 13 - January 10, 2005

It's second semester and the staff of the rock has had quite a shake up, and I mean that in a good way.

Of the 23 souls who pioneered the paper last semester, 9 have returned. The good news is that they all WANT to be part of the paper. This is no longer just an elective for them. The bad news is that we lost three fine reporters, all of whom had been page managers for at least one of our two issues. More good news is that we lost a number of students who were "just visiting." The great news is that nine new students have joined the "veterans," and all have talent.

What they don't have is experience, so we are in the midst of a crash course on how to do a newspaper. Here's how last week went:

Monday: After a quick round of introductions and the ritual passing out of the Reporters Notebooks, we had a press conference with me as the source. The goal was two-fold: gather enough information to write a short first article about someone, and also to allow students to get to know me (a little) at their own pace. The first question was, predictably, "What's your birthday?" Early on came, "What's your favorite candy?"

Despite the slow start, I hung in there, and so did they. The questions got progressively better, and some reporters even took a shot at a follow up question or two.

Tuesday: Students brought their first drafts of the press conference story to class, but first we did a quick "debrief." We talked about the sorts of questions that didn't work so well (and agreed that simple "yes or no" questions, and questions that just didn't go anywhere, didn't work), and about those that did work (questions that invited anecdotes, like "Tell us about what made you want to teach," received high marks), and about the scattered feel of press conferences.

Lindsey, one of the new staff members, thought the "favorite candy" question was quite silly. I said that while the question didn't seem to go anywhere, you never know where an answer might lead you. What if I had said, in addition to my answer, which was Heath Bars, that English toffee reminded me of living in England for two years while in the Air Force? Might that lead to a line of questioning that could produce some interesting anecdotes and reveal personality?

We agreed that there are no "silly questions;" there are only silly, or nonexistent, follow up questions.

We also discussed the difference between editing and proofreading. My advice was that in editing (or coaching) you were really just asking questions of the writer. You were inviting more information, more depth, different angles. Why proofread a story before it really is a story? We practiced by using editing groups, in which everyone in a group of four read the others' work, and wrote down at least one question on the story. No other marks were allowed.

To combat the "scattered feel" of the press conference, I then paired up the class and told them that our second practice would be the one-on-one interview. No long lecture on types of questions. Just sit down and talk with one another. One piece of advice: try to find one area of your partner's life to focus on. It will give your story (due Friday) an anchor.

Wednesday: This was block day (classes meet for 90 minutes one day per week), so the first half hour of the period students finished interviewing. They seemed much more comfortable with this concept after a day to think over questions and possible angles.

Then we went to the computers to get acquainted with InDesign. All students had a computer, and I gave them all a letter-sized layout, complete with a sample of one of the interview stories, some sidebar quotes from yours truly taken from their press conference stories, and a couple visuals, including a nice shot of Brad Pitt (with my name under the photo). Their task was to replicate my layout.

I talked them through the entire exercise, from starting a new file to setting up a 7-column grid, to placing art and text. Several staff members had a passing knowledge of InDesign (from first semester), though they appreciated the review. Everyone kept up and produced something that at least resembled my sample page. One new staff member, David, who was labeled "scary smart" by the colleague who recommended him to me, did everything so fast that he could fool around with Photoshop while I was helping the less gifted. It turns out that he has a pirated version of Photoshop at home, and he thinks of it as a sort of video game. I look forward to learning a few tricks from him.

Friday: Drafts of partner interviews were due today, but the majority of time we discussed news leads. I shared a handout that contained a variety of leads taken from one day of one newspaper, and we went over highlighting answers to the "5 Ws" in your leads, as well as the concept of objectivity. We hadn't been very objective in our first stories. The new folks, bright as they are, just couldn't resist inserting their opinions about me, about their partners, about life in general.

Friday was Susie's birthday. We sang to her. Susie is one of our "stars," our first columnist. She was 15 on Friday. Have I mentioned that we are very young?

But they will get it. I can tell. My subjective assessment: this will be a fun, challenging semester.

Happy New Year!

Jack Kennedy

Rock Canyon High School

Highlands Ranch CO 80124

jkkennedy@comcast.net

jack.kennedy@dcsdk12.org

Note: This is part of a series of columns on working with a completely untrained staff. It is cryptotherapy for me. It may occasionally provide something positive for you. It's all uncharted territory, that's for sure.