Installment+5

South of Denver

Chapter 5 - September 27, 2004

As I flashed Power Point slides of newspaper front pages before them, the students made quick notes, yawned or exclaimed, but we were getting just a little closer to finding our personality.

Gathered from the Newseum website's "front pages from around the world" feature, all the pages were from the same day (which interested me far more than the students), and represented a wide range of approaches. The students aren't design experts, but they quickly sensed that the coolest designs tended to be from Mexico and Brazil. Lots of color, lots of "in your face" art, and front pages that functioned more as a menu than the traditional news page that characterizes the U.S. press.

"But those colors are just too much," Eliza said. "The reds and golds are just overwhelming. I don't think that is our look."

"So what colors are us?" I asked.

No immediate answers. The Journalism class will be out looking for the answers in the coming week.

Hannah was adamant about the front page being reader-friendly, with "maybe two stories on the page." Dani was in favor of a one-story front. Many in the class looked baffled by all the options, and spent most of their time commenting on individual topics or art that they saw up on the screen.

Cassie said, "Have you noticed all the cool illustrations we have seen? They are more powerful than the photos, I think." Cassie, along with Meagan, sitting right next to her, has been doodling anime art during the show, glancing up for a quick peak as the slides popped up. Cassie is already lobbying for a cartooning slot on The Rock. Perhaps I can use that desire as a motivation to get her to turn her writing in on time, or at all.

Cassie is one of the best writers in the class, with a smooth narrative style and a love of language. But there are issues at home, issues at school, issues in her head, and despite all her talent, she is flat out failing the course. What she turns in is promising, but there's so little of it. On the other hand, journalism is her best hope to make use of all that creativity, all that frustration, all that pent up talent. Perhaps the group pressure to make deadline for the first issue will be enough to get her to break through all the issues.

After nearly an hour of the torrent of slides, with brief commentaries by myself and anyone who wants to chime in, we're all in a daze. Now the final slides turn into sort of an eye test.

"Do you like the front page this way?" A slide of the Virginia Pilot is up, with a cool illustration anchoring a "poster" that dominates the broadsheet page, surrounded by four news story starts. "Notice that all the stories jump to the inside," I said. "Research shows that about 80 percent of readers never make the jump." Many heads nod in agreement. "Do we want to jump stories?"

Chelsea said, "I'd like them to read my whole story, so, no." She clearly speaks for nearly everyone here.

Next slide. A Mexican daily whose front page is basically a graphically-enhanced menu of what readers will find inside. "Or do you like the front page this way?"

Susie points out that we only have eight pages for the first issue. "That would be a lot of space to give up for a menu," she said. She, like many in the class, has already figured out the math of dividing 8 pages by 22 staff members. She's smart, passionate and has the beginnings of being a great writer. She wants the chance to show what she can do.

I want her to have that chance as well. And what about Chelsea, who is already in love with the idea of creating a great newspaper? Or what about Devin and Mike, the two boys in the class? They want their chance. And then there's Jackie, whose interest in the class seems to go in and out of focus. She desperately needs to do something well, to break out of her self-imposed isolation.

Third slide: a tabloid front page from Brazil that is basically one story, with big art and a few skyboxes to tease inside pieces. "How about this way?"

It occurred to me that we were trying to match our personalities to our story-telling concepts, but that our own personalities were still a bit amorphous, a bit fuzzy. I am asking 14 and 15-year-olds to make some pretty sophisticated decisions.

Will they be up to the challenge?

Jack Kennedy

Rock Canyon HS

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.