Real World Journalism in a Middle School

Over a three year period a simple middle school newspaper evolved into a profitable, highly regarded paper that turned 7th graders into professional journalists.

I was trying to create a good enrichment after school class at a middle school that serves a low income, mostly rural, Hispanic population. The after school program offers academic help, but it is the enrichment classes that keep the students from leaving at the bell.

As a writer, the idea of a paper appealed to me, so I promoted the class. The students who showed up were not writers, and many were not fully fluent in English. They were a group of kids who thought it would be something fun to try.

The program had a small budget, so I purchased a few cheap digital cameras, some reporter notebooks and some plastic ID badges. The idea was that I would treat them like real reporters and staff, with weekly story meetings and students helping decide layout issues.  

In pairs, reporter and photographer, they scurried about campus, interviewing people, covering sports, attending dances and special school activities and commenting on issues of importance to their peers.   We published once every five or six weeks, running off enough on a copy machine for each of the 450 students at the school.

Each student had a press pass, allowing them access to people and places. With me looking over their shoulders and heavily editing their stories, we managed to produce some very readable copy.

The following year funds were in shorter supply, and I wanted to pay the school printing office to  produce better copies, so I had some students call local businesses to sell ads. I paid them a ten percent commission, which was very motivating to kids who have very little.

In order to help justify the ads, I had students contact our local advertisers and interview them about their businesses. Also, some students’ parents were involved in community projects, which might be of interest to other parents. Suddenly the paper was not just about the school any longer, and we started putting our community stories in both English and Spanish for the parents.

Our school was on a busy road with no signal, so I had students contact county officials about the possibility of putting in a light. They reported on it and advocated for it, and we eventually got our signal.