Installment+25

South of Denver – Chapter 25

October 17, 2005

Issue 2 had hit the halls just two hours before, and for most of the newspaper staff our class on Wednesday afternoon was the first time they had a chance to really sit down and just read the paper. By and large, that’s just what they did – quietly. But the staff of The Rock is hardly a typical group.

The next day, most of the juniors in my English III class, made up of kids who haven’t done well in a traditional English classroom, wanted time to read the school paper rather than their own books during our silent reading time. They actually read the paper in class. They hadn’t had time the day before, they said.

We were on the bus to the state journalism conference a little later, sharing the lovely yellow vehicle with several yearbook staff members. I happened to be behind them, and watched them share one copy of the paper. They may not be typical readers, either, but they pored over the paper, pointing out favorite bits to one another. One girl even seemed to wipe away a tear after reading Kelsey’s commentary.

Sure, issue 2 was a clear step up from number 1 in terms of content and in terms of writing quality, but what I noticed was that kids with enough time were more than eager to read the school newspaper. Some of them seemed genuinely surprised to find that reading the paper could be interesting, challenging, maybe even fun. Holy smokes!

My first thought, sitting on the bouncing school bus on the nearly two-hour drive home from Fort Collins, was that we need to find ways to encourage our fellow teachers to give kids some time to read the paper when it comes out. Wouldn’t it be great if our colleagues supported us in that way? Wouldn’t it be great if they would use the paper to supplement their own curriculum? After all, couldn’t math use the paper to discuss the methodologies of opinion polls? Couldn’t social studies take the news quiz that we have started including each month? Maybe foreign language classes could have taken a few minutes to discuss our column from Colleen, who is spending six months studying in France? And even physical education might take a few moments to discuss our coverage of sports injuries and how to prevent them.

And then I thought of the reality of education, and realized that the concept of teachers using material created by students, as opposed to all the materials carefully developed by educational experts and purchased at great cost… well, that is clearly just me being overly idealistic and naïve.

But back to my bus ride reverie... I had just led a session during the state conference about the importance of finding new ways to tell stories, about how to rethink coverage, about the need for quicker reads, packed with more information. About how we are in competition with everything from HD radio to the Internet to the brand new iVideo, and about how we need to change our approaches to providing news to keep up.

I honestly believe all that to be true, but I also honestly believe that the true glory of journalism, the real reason I continue to teach it after 30 years, is the well-told story, the skillful artistry of language. It’s a paradox, but one I can live with.

There is one scene from helping the staff put together issue 2 that sticks in my head. It was spending over 40 minutes after school going over Kelsey’s article with her, probing for more detail, discussing precise use of language, suggesting new approaches, laughing with her, and nearly crying with her. Her commentary, which started out as a speech she had given in public speaking class, was an essay that moved seamlessly between two scenes in churches. The first was the funeral of her mother, who had died of cancer when she was 8, and about how cold it was that morning and how sad and embarrassed she had been. The second was the wedding day, four years later on a warm April day, of her father and her new mother, whose spouse had also died of cancer, and of the new family that had been formed by this union.

Her speech teacher had tipped me to this story, and since Kelsey is in my AP Language class, she trusted me when I offered her the possibility of having her essay published. Actually, she was delighted.

Oh, I know I was overstepping my bounds, strictly speaking. Isn’t The Rock a student paper? Shouldn’t a student have been deciding to include Kelsey’s piece? Isn’t my job to sit back and react to student ideas, to then help them shape them, to be careful not to advise a student newspaper that primarily appeals to 55-year-old readers who look remarkably like me?

It turns out that I just can’t be that passive, that judicious. I’m just as passionate about great journalism as anyone I’ve ever taught. And great writing is great writing – the ages of the writer or reader just don’t enter in. And without me getting involved, the paper misses a great story.

Susie was the page manager, and she is quite a writer herself. She recognized the quality of the piece immediately, and spent quite a bit of time doing some final proofing and polishing. She and I talked about how long the commentary was (in terms of standard newspaper content), and we talked about how some readers just wouldn’t attempt to read something of that length. We both agreed that it would be their loss, and that we owed it to those who would read it -- even only when stuck in an English III class or on a school bus -- a chance to share this story, written this way.

Kelsey is not on the staff this semester. She is, as are so many top students, overscheduled. But she stopped in after school last Monday to hang with the staff for a while before going up to the theatre for one-act auditions. She helped proof some pages. She enjoyed the energy of a newspaper staff struggling to complete an issue.

She asked me if she might join the staff, if she could rearrange her schedule to be part of all this. Hmmm… now that was a classic no-brainer!

Kelsey doesn’t know much about desktop publishing or design or cool sidebars or even legal and ethical issues. She likes to write, to tell stories.

It turns out that it is about the writing, after all.

Jack Kennedy

Rock Canyon High School

Highlands Ranch CO 80124

 jkkennedy@comcast.net

 jack.kennedy@dcsdk12.org

Note: This is the latest chapter in a series of columns on working with a young staff in a young school (8 of the 11 staff are sophomores and no senior class yet). It is cryptotherapy for me. It may occasionally provide something positive for you. Please go to the JEAHELP archives to read the previous chapters if you missed them and have absolutely nothing else to do.