HIP-HOP

More about The Trailblazer, Pascack Hills
High School’s online newspaper
1Delegate—and trust whom you delegate
If your job and livelihood depend on how well the student
newspaper performs, you’re not going to want to leave it in the
hands of teenagers. You have to realize, though, that your job
is not to create the paper; it’s to do what your job title suggests:
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teach, moderate or advise. You’re guiding your students and giving
advice when they ask for it or when you see fit.
Furthermore, you need to trust the people to whom you delegate
the work. Choose students who have the maturity to handle
tasks responsibly and independently. You may want to choose
students whom you have previously taught. You will already have
an established rapport with them and know how they work. Have
a way that you can get in touch with your journalism students
quickly, but do so only within the express guidelines of boardapproved
district policy.
With a staff of almost 100 students, I let section editors handle
their sections. Editors will schedule and conduct meetings, assign
articles, approve pitches from writers, and edit and send articles
to a Google doc folder for me to approve for appropriate content.
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Have clearly defined sections
Although it’s normal and expected to have a few writers who
float from section to section, having clearly defined sections helps
to organize a large staff. We have Arts and Entertainment, Video
News, Opinion, Local/World News, Sports and School News. As
previously stated, each section works independently with the
editor(s) at the helm.
Motivate, but don’t overwhelm
Finding a middle ground between being an adviser and turning
your staff into workhorses can be very difficult. In the beginning,
I felt like we had to do everything possible to transform the newspaper,
all at once. Before the school year even started, I contacted
my editor-in-chief and managing editors, relayed conference
dates, and discussed implementing podcasting and mentoring
programs.
All my enthusiasm was well-intentioned, but to my staff it was
overwhelming. They were prepping for college and trying to enjoy
the rest of summer, and I was running the risk of turning my
students off to the joy of journalism. After a heart-to-heart with
them soon after, I apologized for my overzealousness and started
fresh. From then on, I vowed only to introduce one new idea or
goal a month. 3Eventually, the students were the ones having the
ideas. Their latest one was to create a point system. Club members
earn points by doing various things such as fundraising or
writing. Points translate to opportunities for higher positions the
following school year. This idea was totally theirs. They were taking
ownership of the club.
The Trailblazer website: phhstrailblazer.org
The Trailblazer on Twitter: twitter.com/phhstrailblazer
Alana Rome’s educational blog: trialsoftrailblazing.edublogs.org
Alana Rome’s National Council of Teachers of English blog
series on scholastic journalism: bit.ly/ncterome
The Trailblazer was also featured on NJEA’s television show,
“Classroom Close-up NJ”: classroomcloseup.org/segments/
trailblazer
Join organizations, attend conferences, and enter contests
I love authentic assessments. I always tell students that I would
hate for their hard work to “die” in the classroom, unseen by others.
In the same way, I would hate for our school newspaper to
“die” in Hills High School. This year, we have been expanding our
readership through conferences and contests. We attended the
Garden State Scholastic Press Association (GSSPA) and the Columbia
Scholastic Press Association's (CSPA) fall conferences. We
joined the Journalism Education Association, the National Scholastic
Press Association, GSSPA and CSPA. We entered the Best
of Student Newspapers Online (SNO), American Scholastic Press
Association, and CSPA contests. The exposure has created more
opportunities, as well. I have been asked to be a CSPA judge for
GSSPA's annual newspaper critiques, and one of our managing
editors has been published in outside, professional publications.
The more contests we enter, the more potential exposure and
awards we receive, not to mention that many of these contests
have critiques where we can get professional feedback. We have
received second place standing for ASPA and NSPA and a Gold
Medalist Award from CSPA. Moreover, for many of these conferences,
schools bring copies of their newspapers to distribute.
Since we are completely online this year, we handed out pens with
our website address on them instead: PHHSTrailblazer.org.
Engage through #SocialMedia
Twitter is the new wave of news, in 140 characters or less. We
set up @PHHSTrailblazer and follow hundreds of students, news
affiliates and journalism organizations. We use news affiliate
Twitter accounts for inspiration during pitch meetings. We tag local
news affiliates when we publish an article about local happenings,
or teachers and students when it’s a school-related matter.
Know your audience: student newspaper doesn’t
mean student audience
Although students are the primary audience, advisers often
forget about another very vital source of readers: parents. I invited
parents to subscribe to our Trailblazer Weekly Roundup email,
created with MailChimp, where we feature the top three articles
of the week. This way, parents are informed and we increase our
readership. We’ve also received emails from parents with feedback
on what we should cover. Expanding our audience also gives
students a sense of responsibility; their peers aren’t the only ones
reading their work!
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