Extra! Extra! Write All About It: Create a Class Newspaper

Even with the growth of online and broadcast news, newspapers still have a big role to play in journalism and information sharing. This class will work to create a fun and unique newspaper to share with friends and family. We will meet live four times to work together. Students will be expected to spend some time outside of class working on their part of our project. We will use Lucidpress to compile our final work. Students may sign up for a free account in order to input and edit items. However, they may also do their work in other programs (Google Docs, Google Slides, Google Sheets, etc.) and send it to the teacher to be put into the newspaper. The teacher will screen share the project for those that choose this option.

Class by week:

Week 1: We will look at different newspapers and learn the different components of them. We will discuss how every part of the newspaper is important -- front page story, serious and informative pieces, comics, classifieds, sports, reviews and opinion pieces. Students will be encouraged to brainstorm about topics they enjoy and to begin thinking about what they may like to contribute to the final project.

Week 2: Students will learn about gathering information, conducting interviews, finding sources, and answering the 5W questions (what, when, where, why, who). We will look at each student's contribution idea and help them come up with ways to complete them.

Week 3: It's time to edit! Students will have a chance to share what they have created so far. The teacher and students will offer constructive advice for improving the work. (Everything can always be improved!) We will also work on sharing advice in a positive manner to build up our peers and encourage their work.

Week 4: Wrap it up! As a class, we will finalize placement and formatting of our newspaper. Once it is put together, we will review it as a class. The file will then be shared with the students so they can enjoy the work after class and share it with friends and family. In order to protect students, they will use only an alias for their final work and no identifying information will be allowed.

As students work through creating their choice selection(s) for the newspaper, they can reach out to the teacher throughout the course. I will check messages at least once a day between 3 and 5 p.m. Central. Any derogatory, malicious, or negative remarks or work will NOT be tolerated. The student will be gently corrected once. After that, if the problem persists, they will be removed from the course with no refund. Students may choose to do multiple pieces for the newspaper if they wish.