Wow. Along with the rest of the group, I came away from Day One of the Reynolds Institute with my head spinning and my brain bursting with ideas.
Beginning at the end, I can't stress enough how valuable it was for me to be placed into the story mapping, interviewing, and reporting activities. Having little to no journalistic background, I have been giving my students advice (gleaned from sources on the Internet) about how to do these things. However, I've never had the opportunity to put most of it in practice myself. Learning by doing is so powerful, and I need to remember that when I meet my next class of budding student journalists in the fall. Most notably, the story mapping, along with the idea of the pitch paper, could work nicely with my class, and it would help improve the process we already have in place in which we use a Google Docs spreadsheet to map out stories, reporters, and editor assignments for the issue in progress.
Ending with the beginning, I thoroughly enjoyed not only the presentation by Ken Paulson, but also our group's engaging discussion about the First Amendment. I've always been a big fan of the First Amendment, and I knew quite a few details, but learned a lot more today. I know that I did not stress this enough with my students last year, and I'm really excited to begin the new year with a lesson or unit on the First Amendment. I definitely want to tie in a discussion on the Pledge of Allegiance. Ever since my 10th grade English teacher asked us to dissect the pledge to truly understand what we are saying, I've paid much closer attention to it, and I'm known to get on my soapbox from time to time. What better forum for discussion on the topic than in a journalism classroom?
After pondering the idea for quite awhile, I remembered that my aforementioned 10th grade English teacher tied in this lesson on the Pledge with showing us what was, at the time, a fairly recent early 80s television movie called The Wave, based on a true story of 1967 experiment conducted at Cubberley High School in Palo Alto, California, by a history teacher with his students in order to demonstrate what happens when people sacrifice their individual freedoms in order to conform to the masses (his intention was to show them how the Holocaust could happen). The Wave was later transformed into a book, remade as a movie again in recent years, and Ron Jones, the teacher who originated the experiment, recently documented the experience in a short narrative about this group of students referred to as The Third Wave. The Wave is required reading in many schools, but I don't think anyone in my school teaches it, so I'm considering using it (or at least the short narrative or movie) with my journalism students to emphasize the importance of the freedoms guaranteed to us in the First Amendment. It's quite a powerful and engaging story! If you'd like to check it out, more details of the story, along with a YouTube video of the 1981 movie, are available at http://www.thewave.tk/http://www.thewave.tk/
Marlo Spritzer
Southern Lehigh High School
Center Valley, Pennsylvania
The overflow of great ideas was my first big take away. There were so many and I am still struggling with where to start. I'm amazed we are only two days in and I feel like I will be so much better prepared for the school year already.
ReplyDeleteMarlo,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your blog. We do something similar to the Pitch Paper called a Reporting Plan. I've found that doing that gives me and my editors a lot more information about where the reporter was intending to go. Most of my kids have good ideas but aren't good at follow through or overcoming obstacles. The reporting plan helps remind all of us of that original golden intention and inspires them to dive back in after rough drafts have been edited. However, we do not do that in lieu of our Google Doc which we use to track stories, assigning photos and then tracking the posting of the story to the Google Doc. I'm sure your kids will do great next year!
I also really enjoyed your story about The Wave...reminded me of Freedom Writers...what a great (inspirational) teacher you had. Hopefully you've kept in contact. :) Debbie
You know, what's interesting is that at the time, I didn't really have a strong personal connection to that teacher, and she was not among my "favorites," but in hindsight -- many, many years later -- I realize that she impacted my thinking more than most of my teachers did in four years.
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