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Three weeks of Advisers Workshops sure went by fast! As always they were a blast and filled with tons of learning.

Sunday marks the arrival of car fulls of high school journalists for the annual Student Workshop. Don’t want to miss a minute of the action, but can’t make it to East Lansing? Check out our new workshop blog at blogs.mipamsu.org We will be posting photos, student work, announcements and all things MIPA. This site have been transferred to the new location so you can sign in using your login from here – or even using Facebook (yep, we’ve made it that easy for you)

rtethertetretreree MIPA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just learning some stuff

Today I’m learning about web sitedesign.  I’m not sure why I keep getting redirected to the MSUevolve Blog but so be it.  This is a sample post.

Newspaper Advising’s 300-Word Stories

Each of us did a 300-word story modeled after Brady Dennis of the St. Petersburg Times. We wrote about one of our classmates we’d never met. Then, we used the Lori Oglesbee’s revision process to improve our writing!

Melissa Winchell’s story about Alexis Bunka

Lisa Hansen’s story about Emily Mullins

Jodi Darland’s story about Jesse McLean

Alexis Bunka’s story about Melissa Winchell

Jesse McLean’s story about Jodi Darland

Bethany Allen’s story about her friend

Emily Mullins 300 word story about Lisa Hansen

 

 

Looking at editorial policies

If your school is thinking updating its policies (whether you have a NEOLA policy or not), you might find this NEOLA link interesting. NEOLA has released a ton of policies over the last decade, and most having anything to do with student publications have been very restrictive. Now, finally, they offer some alternatives, including a designated policy.

Look at their site, listed above carefully. Check out the alternatives. TO JEA and other journalism organizations, one is clearly better than the other three, but at least there is now a choice for your system.

You might also consider these other model policies and statements:

• SPLC Model

• JEA model edit policy

• JEA statements on prior review

• List of schools which are forums for student expression

For other information go the SPLC site and that of JEA’s Scholastic Press Rights Commission.

Design Challenge: Daughter v. Mother

For my 300-word feature story assignment last night, I interviewed my daughter–a tech-savvy kid who wants to go into journalism. I told her as part of the assignment I had to make two sidebars, and I was  just  going to do it on InDesign because it would be easier. She got excited   (she says she misses yearbook), and asked if she could do it.

Having paid close attention to the handy academic integrity animation MSU required me watch before taking a class, I thought this may be a bad idea. Also, having my 15-year-old do my work for a MASTERS class somehow  didn’t seem right. So, I said no.

But then she offered me a challenge. I would do mine, she would do hers, and we would see which one was better. I could take them to my colleagues. (She’s a cheeky little  whipper-snapper.)

There it was:  an archetypal mother/daughter struggle for design dominance. And you all get to vote.

Some competition disclaimers:

1. Neither of us spent much time on these and no prior planning was involved, so neither of us thinks these represent our best work. If mine were turned into me for a grade in my publication class, it may get a C. So the question isn’t are they good; the question is which is better? You can judge on strict design rules or just which you like you better.

2. Photography was NOT part of the assignment.

Please vote and add a comment, if you want. Hopefully, I’ll still be able to claim I can teach her a few things about design…and I won’t have to do the dishes tonight!

Alligator Sanctuary video

 

Not the best video skills, I’ll admit. But I was impressed by how easy it was to learn to edit video and create something I can use to show my students how to begin to create video stories.

300-Word Story process

I remember the stress of looking for my colleague Scot the evening he disappeared for a while.  He left the school.  Quite a while later his wife began calling others in the school who would likely have worked as late as Scot.  The Middle School Music teacher and her husband began a search along his route home looking for him.  The added stress to our district community was that on the same night, the Instrumental Music Teacher had a heart attack just after a Jazz Band practice.  It was a very disastrous night for music.

AltCopy-Roberts

300 Word Post Vondrasek

   This was very difficult for me to edit to 300 words. I originally had it at 750 and to me it holds more weight at that length. This was originally a project for a writing course I took with Bobby Hawthorne. I have struggled with this for some time and it was time to be written. I believe it to be a very real piece as most people have had a similar experience. It may not involve cancer, but people’s stories would echo the same sentiments. My dad told me once that he blinked, and time passed. It does.300 Word Essay

300 word story- Alligator Sanctuary

 300 word story- alligator sanctuary

Judi Henckel’s 300 word story

I’ve driven past it a million times since it’s only a mile from my home. My journalism students have written stories about it at least three times in the past two years. I have seen pictures of the inside, the outside, and the occupants- both human and reptile. I have watched television news stories about it and spoken with its owners countless times at community events or civic meetings. I thought I knew everything about the Critchlow Alligator Sanctuary. But the real story about the sanctuary is not what it was built to hold, or even how it operates in Michigan’s cool climate. The real story is found in a tube of blood flowing through a machine and a love flowing from husband to wife.