Installment+2

South of Denver

Chapter 2 – September 6, 2004

Never has the importance of seniors to a school been clearer. The 22 young journalism students are a mixed bag, with a couple freshmen who score at the top of state assessments, and a couple sophomores who find school to be incredibly boring, if not frustrating. Most of the kids are bright and engaged and moderately skilled as writers. In other words, they are students.

But there are no seniors in the school. No traditions at all. We are brand new.

Abigail and Taylor have never read a news story in their school newspaper. They’ve never had one. But this week is “Nose for News” week, where the assignment is to turn in three news stories in three class periods. We have studied the elements of news (proximity, prominence, etc.) and we have rewritten some published leads. We have gone over grammatical options.

But now the students need to come up with angles for news coverage, do the reporting and do the writing, all with very little time available. It’s an assignment that will separate the women from the girls, so to speak.

On Wednesday morning, the gym is filled (well, one side of the bleachers is filled—there are only 442 students thus far) for the first pep assembly in this building. Covering this event is almost irresistible.

Abigail began her story that was due Friday: “The gym of Rock Canyon High School was filled with school spirit today.”

Taylor went with: “The first pep rally of the school year happened today and it was a huge success.”

We have been practicing a variety of leads, but clearly we have a lot of work still to do. Abigail’s lead is in passive voice and positively revels in cliché. Taylor’s features a boring verb (happened?) along with editorializing. They are both bright young women.

Their leads will have to do as models tomorrow in class. There really aren’t any better. Next year’s journalism students will have read a variety of stories, with a variety of well-developed leads, because Abigail and Taylor and the rest of the staff will have struggled through the process of researching, writing, editing, more research, writing and editing, and more editing.

But this is our first month in our first year and, to their instructor’s chagrin, this assignment did little to separate the women from the girls.

Time for the big guns. Friday I handed out The Radical Write to the students and asked them to read chapter one over the Labor Day weekend. The guts of the chapter describe what good writing is.

Upon receiving her copy, Abigail said, “This looks like a textbook.”

“Yes,” I replied, “but it’s the best textbook of its kind. You’ll love it. Trust me.”

“Sure,” she said, “but it’s a textbook.”

The text itself is good writing, full of passion and an abundance of information. But will the students see it? Can Abigail be won over? I’ll find out Tuesday.

It wasn’t all struggling through the basics of news writing this week. When we had some spare moments we brainstormed possible names for the paper. Everyone brought three ideas and we filled the white board with them.

Everyone has an opinion.

“No using Jaguar in the name. It’s so overdone.”

“And no Canyons either.”

“But I like our name.”

You get the idea. Eventually the semi-finalists emerge: The Pride, The Rock, Canyon News, The Spot, Canyon Echoes, Canyon View and RCHS Press.

“What adjectives would you like people to use when describing your paper this year?” I ask. I’m groping for some mechanism to help pare down the list. They come up with: expressive, original, fun, trustworthy, honest, exciting, and outstanding. A good list. “Can we match up the adjectives with the possible names?”

By 1:45 Friday they had narrowed the list to three: Echoes, The Rock, and The Spot (something with jaguar spots that I am still trying to process, but that seems to appeal to several staff members).

Naming the paper is exciting and frustrating and, ultimately, getting in the way of discussing becoming better reporters and writers. A decision must be made, and soon.

After all, a cool name in the flag won’t cover up lousy writing.

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.