A-ha! By George, I think I've got it!

It's no secret that journalistic writing and essay writing are two completely different things.  The catch is, unless you've studied journalism or fallen into the profession, chances are you're like me and only learned how to write in one of these modes.  After all, "academic" writing is what we have been trained for as English teachers, and we turn around and instill those same lessons in our students.  And certainly, there is a place for this kind of writing.

But that place is not in a newspaper.

In the last year since I took over my school's journalism program, I did my best to Google the heck out of the Internet to glean any information I could about how to teach students to write for the newspaper.  I did my best with it.  Over the course of several months, I learned to better edit my students' writing to follow what I observed to be a more journalistic approach.

But I knew I could do better.

Fast forward to the ASNE Reynolds High School Journalism Institute in Phoenix and my first opportunity to work on a fast-paced deadline to write my first true piece of journalism on Dylan Smith.  Did I meet the deadline?  Yes.  Did I wish I had more time to polish my work?  Yes.  But was I happy with what I wrote?  Sure, I didn't think it was too bad.  It turns out that my instincts were correct.  It wasn't too bad, but it wasn't the best either.

How would I make it better for the rewrite?  

First step, read Steve Elliott's notes on my paper.  I thought I had a pretty good idea where to go from there, so I went.  I read and re-read and rearranged.  And then I did it again.

And then I got stuck.

Why was this so difficult for me?  I know I'm a good writer.  Why did I get stuck on what should have been a simple rewrite?  I decided to take a break, go work on something else, and hope I could get another set of eyes to look at my work. 

Enter Steve Elliott.

At this point, I have to say that I really appreciate Steve taking the time to go beyond his notes and discuss my work with me and let me ask lots of questions.  It turns out that my rewrite wasn't fixing the problem.  I was still writing like an English teacher and not like a journalist.  After just a few minutes of questions and answers and what-ifs, the lightbulb suddenly went on.  Thanks Steve!  (Sidebar: This has been an important reminder to me that my students might not always be able to make corrections based on the notes I write on their papers.  A quick conference can make a world of difference!)

I got it.  I knew how to do my rewrite.  When I finally got down to business, shuffled some things around to reorder the ideas in my article, and moved the most important points (not the background information) to the top, I could really see the difference, and I was pretty pleased with myself.  

So why couldn't I come up with a good lead for my institute article?  I knew where I was going with my article. I kept telling people that.  Yessiree, I knew where I wanted it to end up, but I just couldn't figure out a good lead.  Yep, I sure knew where I was going with it...

Oh snap!  There it was again.  The light bulb!

All of a sudden, I figured it out.  (Pay attention, English teachers.)  The not-so-secret secret that had been eluding me suddenly smacked me right in the face.

If you know where you want to end up, THAT'S YOUR LEAD!

I know, I know.  It seems so obvious to some, but I just had to figure it out in my own way.

And if there's one thing of which I've constantly been reminded this week, it's that there are some things in this world (like learning to drive stick) that you can't truly learn by reading about it on the Internet.  You've got to take a flying leap, just do it, and be willing to make a few mistakes along the way to your "a-ha" moment.

This has been one of them.

Marlo Spritzer
Southern Lehigh High School
Center Valley, PA