The Gator Gazette

This year I am teaching Journalism. The class includes running the student newspaper at East Naples Middle School, the Gator Gazette (thegatorgazette.com), and creating the yearbook. While the yearbook is still in its preliminary planning stages, the newspaper has taken off. 

Over the past month of school, the kids have really come around. I remember that during our first couple of Monday story-planning sessions, a time when we brainstorm story ideas, they resembled quiet time rather than a brainstorming period. The kids didn't know what we should be reporting on and were very hesitant to offer suggestions. It took some time to coach kids into realizing that many things that are going on around them are newsworthy. That awesome project kids are doing in Civics class? That's a story! The roller coasters kids are building in science classes? That's a story! New teachers to the building? Definitely stories! 

We have decided not only to report on the usual happenings of our middle school, but also to feature as many kids and their accomplishments as possible. We look for stories about kids who are doing amazing things outside the classroom. We have musicians, artists, athletes, and scholars who are involved in programs in the evenings and on the weekends. We try to find out about those and feature those stories in the paper as well. It is our mission to feature our students, as many as possible, so that the community can see the awesome things going on in our school. Some parts of the paper, particularly the Features section, are more publicity than "news". That's okay because our human interest stories are the things that bring in readership.

Our newspaper is online-only. Because it is online, we can be more nimble. We update the paper every other day. There is a constant stream of new stories and the kids are now identifying things they can write about. They are now making suggestions without me having to ask. Many kids drop by to borrow the cameras so they can take pics in their classes or after-school activities. I even made press passes for the kids to wear so that teachers can identify them and allow them to take pics. 

The downside to being digital-only is that we must advertise to get readership. We created fliers with our URL and a QR code and hung them around our building. One challenge is that our school frowns on cellphone use so kids cannot immediately scan the code or input the URL. We will occasionally publish a feature story on paper as a sort of sample story, hoping that it will drive more readers to our site. Getting kids to realize that our newspaper exists is a big goal for us during first quarter. We think that once kids see what we are doing, they will be regular visitors to our site. When they see pics of themselves and their friends, they will be hooked!

The Seating Challenge

Every year I try to learn as much about my kids as possible. I want to know what makes them tick, what they like to read, what they do in their leisure time, what their family situations are, what their passions are, and what their personalities are like. One way to learn a lot about the kids in a short amount of time is to plan activities that show personality traits that I would otherwise not discover during regular classroom routines. One great idea I came across was the Seating Challenge. I read about the Seating Challenge in an article by Sandy Merz in Education Week (link here). In the article, Merz described five different scenarios that the kids had to fulfill in order to begin class. I loved the idea and incorporated all five. 

Right off the bat, I was able to see who instantly took a leadership role. Sadly, there were not many. Unfortunately, our kids are taught to comply from the moment they get to school in Kindergarten and that compliance can have a very negative effect. It seemed like every student was waiting for me, the teacher, to tell them what to do. It was as if they were afraid of doing something without me telling them to do it. That is so dangerous because these kids are going to have to make their own decisions very soon, and if they are constantly looking for someone else to make those decisions, then they are ill-equipped to enter high school, college, or the "real world". Every year, my goal is to make my kids more independent, able to think for themselves and problem-solve. 

Once the kids read the challenge on the board, I waited. Most kids looked at me with a "What now?" look on their faces. I just stood there and smiled. Eventually, sometimes after a torturous six or seven minutes of this, a student finally started moving kids around to satisfy the challenge. After fifteen minutes or so, the challenge was complete. Three of my four classes solved the challenge each day. My sixth hour journalism, full of excellent students, only solved three of five. I had a feeling that this would happen because the class is full of great students, not independent thinkers. Since these kids have learned to play the "school game", they excel at school. When they need skills like independent thinking and problem solving that are not in demand in our typical classroom, they flounder.

During our debrief, I talked to the kids about leadership, following, compliance, and collaboration. Together, they could solve any problem I threw at them. They noted the lack of leadership and also noted the kids who finally did step up and lead. After the first day, kids stepped up to lead quicker than on the first day, but it seemed like it was always the same three or four kids. The others had replaced me giving directions with another student. I'm not sure how much progress that shows. 

In a typical school year for me, the kids start out mousy and meek. Over the course of the year, as they come out of their shells and participate more in the classroom adventure, they learn that they have skills that have not been highlighted in school before. They find that their social or personal skills are important. They find out that leadership and problem solving are things in which they excel. By the end of the year, these kids are much less compliant and more likely to take on projects of their own invention or substitute a project for one I have assigned. These kids find their voice and use it well. Sometimes it is hard to manage. Twenty three kids want to go in twenty three different directions. I get frustrated but step back and realize that the bigger picture is a good one. While these kids could barely function on their own in August, they are taking control of their learning by April. That is how I define success. 

Ready, Set, Go!

Like all teachers, toward the end of the summer, I begin to get jazzed up about the coming school year. This summer, it happened a bit earlier than in previous years, but I think that is because my schedule was changing, and I like change. This year, I moved grade levels (from seventh to eighth) for ELA and picked up a couple of journalism classes. I'm pretty stoked about my course load. I find journalism to be an intriguing class and have always been interested in the subject. In fact, I went to the University of Missouri specifically to go into journalism, since it is the best journalism school in the nation. Go Tigers! Of course, I switched to education because I get to work with kiddos.

Moving to eighth grade has many benefits. I know several students that I have in class; I had them last year. We can build on the community and learning from last year and I can help them develop further, both as learners and as people. They will prepare for high school, and life, by setting high goals and working all year to achieve them. I am fortunate to have kids who are energetic, smart, and happy. I know that many of my kids have life circumstances that cause them worry, but while they are in class, we make sure that we have a positive, productive, fun environment where they can problem-solve and build confidence to tackle problems in other aspects of their lives. We are a community and together we can accomplish so much.

While our ELA classes will practice their independent reading and build on reading and writing skills using the teaching philosophies of Nancie Atwell, Lucy Calkins, Penny Kittle, Kelly Gallagher, and Donalyn Miller, our journalism classes will be immersed in year-long projects as we learn about the various forms of journalism. We are responsible for the Gator Gazette (our student newspaper), our yearbook, the ENM Tide (our literary magazine), and the Teen Lit Review. As the year goes on, we may launch more publications so that we can feature more students and events from East Naples Middle School. The kids are full of ideas and we have a LOT of kids enrolled in journalism (over 60) so the sky really is the limit. These kids are full of energy and ideas and it is my mission to harness that energy and direct it into productive and engaging projects.

After only a few days of classes, I am full of hope and energy. I want to do right by these kids and give them an experience that they will not soon forget.