Teaching
As an editor-in-chief, I felt responsible for the learning of the younger staff. Since our program doesn't have a curriculum or formal lesson plans, a lot of the learning comes from lessons from editors, shadowing and mentoring. Throughout my time on staff I gave several "5 minute lessons" in areas of weakness for the staff. I usually created a google slide that I would present to the class at the start of the hour.
In addition to 5 minute lessons, we started doing a "boot camp" during the summer for incoming and returning staff. The camp lasted three days, with about two to three hours of instruction each day. It was run by our adviser, the two editors-in-chief and the managing editors. We all designed powerpoint presentations and lesson plans. On the last day we had a picnic to get to know each other and to allow time for team bonding.
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The pictures included are screenshots of 5 minute lessons and presentations given during boot camp.
Team Building
We have holiday parties throughout the year, some in class and some out of class. We usually throw an in-class Christmas party where students bring in food to share and gifts for a white elephant gift exchange. This year we hosted our first Christmas party outside of class. It was hosted at one of the managing editors' houses. All of the editors (including myself) created paper plate awards for everyone on staff. It was a great bonding opportunity.
Recruiting & Outreach
To encourage more students to sign up for Journalism classes and grow our staff size, we do recruiting during course scheduling. We send out editors to English classrooms at our school and the middle schools. Executive editors like myself and the managing editors usually go on these recruiting trips. I visited several classrooms during this time and I also returned to my middle school. I give a short presentation on the benefits of taking a Journalism class, what kind of credits it can get you, and I promote all the fun trips and events we go to throughout the year. For upperclassmen at North that have skills that would strengthen our publication, we send out personalized letters inviting them to join staff. Last year we initiated a renewed effort in recruiting because many of the middle school level journalism programs were cut, and so this made our outreach efforts even more important. We saw our staff size grow from 36 to 53.
Diversity Coverage
This editorial was written as an executive board this year. I collaborated on it with my Co-Editor-in-Chief and two Managing Editors. We had just written an editorial commending the school for appointing one of the only minority teachers at our school as an assistant principal, but we also asked for further improvements in diversifying district administration. But, we decided to take a look at our own diversity on staff and in our coverage. We found that around 10% of the sources that we use in longer stories are from minorities, and this does not accurately reflect our school makeup. We wrote this editorial promising to do a better job of finding sources from diverse backgrounds. This includes their beliefs and opinions as well, we noticed that we could to a better job of reflecting student opinions from both sides of many issues. We also called out to our student body for more feedback on what they would like to see in a public forum of expression. Click on the picture to read the full editorial.