Friendship Junior Journalists Bring School Paper to Life
The hustle and bustle of the staff is evident. The chief editors, chief advisor, copy editors, a large variety of subject journalists, online designers, and many others work together to finish by the deadline. The first edition made a great impression, and the goal is to do even better with the next one. The topics from the first paper were greatly varied, from the presidential election to recent building renovations to the advice column, entertainment and do-it-yourself sections. Even the joke writer took his job, well, seriously.
Welcome to the Firebird Feed, Friendship Junior High’s entirely student-created newspaper, which released its first issue on October 28.
According to Friendship’s eighth grade English Language Arts teacher, Kristin Hahn, her language arts students had the opportunity to collaborate on a class passion project this year. After brainstorming, students decided they wanted to better the school’s community by creating a newspaper.
Students researched mentor papers, like Elk Grove High School (EGHS)’s The Guardian and Prospect High School’s Prospector, and combined the best features of those papers with their own ideas. As preparation work, they participated in mini-lessons about article writing and selected what role they each wanted to have with the Firebird Feed. In approximately four weeks, the paper went from concept stage to real life. Upon its release, all FJHS students read the first edition during their language arts classes.
“Some Feed staff members have stayed after school or put in hours of free time to cover school events, interview people, revise and polish their articles, and tweak the website so it’s up to their high standards,” said Hahn, who is very proud of the student’s first edition. “I’m so impressed with how hard our staff works on our Friday work days – the energy in the room is contagious.”
The staff of the EGHS newspaper, including Mary Larson, the staff adviser, provided great support to Friendship’s students in the development of the Firebird Feed and offered to collaborate on the December issue, coming out December 16.
FJHS students were excited to have representatives of the EGHS newspaper staff come to Friendship on November 18, to talk about the ins and outs of school newspapers.
According to Larson, the EGHS newspaper team read the Firebird Feed and provided feedback on the first edition. They discussed important concepts of newspaper writing with Friendship’s journalism team, like writing solid news and opinion pieces, the importance of quality of information and how it impacts reader trust, brainstorming ideas for articles, developing a beat system to cover the whole school population and its activities, interviewing techniques, and many others.
“We want them to get excited about their paper like we’re excited about what we’re able to do for our school and the changes we’re sometimes able to affect with it,” Larson said. “We are here to generate enthusiasm and just get kids excited about the fact that they can use writing in an influential, fun, exciting way.”
Friendship students are already looking forward to their next learning opportunity on December 2, when they are scheduled to take a field trip to EGHS to witness “production day” of the Guardian.