Author: Meegan Holland
Published: May 20, 1999
Last Updated: April 13, 2004
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Connecting with the community

The best way to encourage youngsters to think about — and read — newspapers is to help a class publish one of its own

To learn more The National Elementary Schools Press Association is an organization dedicated to helping elementary and middle schools start new and improve existing class and school newspapers. The association serves as a clearinghouse for schools interested in sharing information and newspapers with member schools from coast to coast. Get your paper online If you would like to post your elementary school or middle school's newspaper online, check out ASNE's my.schooljournalism.org site. For a one-time $25 fee, you'll have access to an easy-to-use cut-and-paste system for posting student journalism.

The elementary school is only six blocks away from our state capital news bureau. But until our do-gooder group of journalists walked through its doors, we didn’t know it was worlds away in terms of our experience as elementary school students.

First impression last September: These kids are out of control.

Our impression today: These kids are out of control in groups of four or more.

Oh, what we’ve learned since starting a school newspaper six months ago with the help of 18 fourth- and fifth-graders.

Some facts: Riddle Elementary School is in one of the toughest neighborhoods in Lansing, Mich. Many of the students have seen poverty and drugs first-hand. Most don’t live with two parents. Riddle has more than its share of transients, and occasionally, a homeless student.

But a couple years ago, an extraordinary spotlight was shone on Riddle: It was targeted by the mayor as a school ripe for experimentation. General Motors agreed, and sent eight laid-off employees there full-time to mentor kids, with the blessing of the United Auto Workers and the Michigan Education Association. Chrysler donated $25,000 to start a reading program. Michigan State University assigned students to organize fun learning activities. Businesses offered up volunteers for tutoring.

Last fall, the principal asked me if our news organization, which provides stories for the eight daily Booth Newspapers, could help the school publish a newspaper. The commitment would be to send three people there for one hour every Thursday afternoon. We’d be assigned to a classroom of kids who don’t know much about computers, and whose reading and writing assessment scores are below average.

Eleven of our staff members committed to volunteer (and the key word is volunteer). We wanted to get involved in a community where we cover state government but not local doings. Riddle would serve as our dose of community reality. Maybe in return, we could get kids to read newspapers — and think about journalism as a career. Best of all, maybe we could grow minority journalists, since the school is predominantly African-American.

Our industry spends a lot of time recruiting college grads, hoping teachers buy into Newspapers In Education programs, and speaking to high school students. But if you ask a group of elementary kids about potential careers, journalism isn’t on their radar screen. I’m confident that today, in this classroom of kids, it rates at least a blip.

If you agree that we need to get kids hooked into the joys of journalism at a younger age, then learn from our experience. Here are some tips:

• Make sure you, the staff liaison and the principal agree on the newspaper’s mission. Who’s the target audience? In our case, it is broad: 300 students, teachers, school board members, administrators and current and potential sources for money and volunteers. It means that some stories serve as public relations devices for school programs. But mostly, our paper is by kids for kids.
• Connect with teachers as quickly as possible. You want them contributing material for the paper, not just reading it.
• We’re not professionals at controlling kids who may have learning disorders, unquenchable energy and emotional problems. Get the kids into manageable groups of three or less as quickly as possible. One-on-one interaction is by far the most effective.
• On the first day, hand out reporter notebooks and take mug shots of all the kids for “press badges” (major advantage: the ID badges help you remember names). Explain that whenever they’re reporting for the newspaper, they must wear their badges and conduct themselves with dignity. Count on a quarter of the class losing their notebooks by year’s end, and the other quarter moving away and being replaced with new kids who have no clue what the newspaper is all about.
• If the school can’t afford it, toss in a few bucks for disposable cameras and tape recorders (indestructible Fischer-Price brand recommended). Monitor their use at all times.
• Let the kids brainstorm story ideas, but go with plenty of your own. One news team voted to survey students on their favorite horror movies. We nixed the idea when it became clear many of the film titles being discussed had R ratings.
• Format, format, format. The more anchored features you have, the easier your job.
• Kids this age can’t take thorough notes. During interviews, a professional journalist needs to be there to take accurate notes or run the tape recorder. Teach the kids to recognize and write down key words to jog their memories when they write the story.
• You can’t keep all the kids busy all the time. The teacher should have an alternative activity — preferably one that isn’t as fun as working on the newspaper. Working on the paper, after all, should be the reward.
• By the time we arrive, most kids will have written a few sentences into the computer, but stories need fleshing out. We sit down with the reporters to prompt their memories and ensure accuracy. We get them to verbalize what they remember and to type it into the computer. Sometimes we’ll add quotes from our notes, being careful to keep the “kid” flavor. This is not a time to worry about spelling — just get it into the computer!