Hola everyone!
It's Labor Day everyone! I'm betting that most of you like myself were lazy ALL weekend and have decided to use today as your day for doing homework and what not. Great weather all weekend, it's easy to be productive on a day like today when I charged my batteries all weekend and just relaxed.
The past week in Journalism, the kids started writing leads. This is the first step to a successful news story. It combines the who, what, when, where, why and how and tries to make sense of it, grab the readers attention and most importantly KEEP that attention. Out of the twelve kids in the class, I believe only maybe 3 were doing this in their work effectively. I many times had to step in and re-word things for the kiddos, but many were responsive and understood why the change was needed. I really like this intro class because they are flexible; if something isn't how it should be, they listen to how to fix it. Most imporantly, they want to know WHY they should fix it. This is learning in a journalism room at it's finest. The WHY in journalism is always to me is the easiest question but sometimes most difficult to explain. The reason WHY we do things a certain way is to make our paper/articles/columns EFFECTIVE and grab the readers attention. How we do this is dependent on variables. These variables range from your target audience, what page the article is on, and so on and so forth. For those of you that haven't ran into the "WHY we do things a certain way" with your kids yet, be prepared for this!
I labeled this article the extra mile because I have decided to go to the Kansas Journalism Convention this month on September 27th. I believe it's important to show that extra innitiave any way you possibly can right now. By showing this extra effort, it may set you apart from others in the hiring process, and getting in great standing with your CT, which can lead to positive comments to administration. We have all heard success stories of student teachers who go above and beyond at their placement, and the next year find themselves as new faculty at the school they were at. My question for my readers is, What else can you do to go that extra mile as a student teacher?
Spencer
Fantastic question, Spencer. And I'm glad to hear that you'll be attending your state conference. Bravo! While you're there, be sure to introduce yourself to people you're sitting next to during the keynote addresses, and thank the presenters at breakout sessions for sharing their ideas. Ask questions. Ask if you can get in touch with them to learn more about their areas of expertise. Conferences are a great way to network, meet potential mentors, and get your name and face "out there."
ReplyDeleteYou might also consider inviting an administrator at your placement site to observe and provide feedback for you during student teaching. When other principals are looking for journalism teachers, your principal will be able to say, "I observed a great student teacher in spring 2012 ..."
Keep up the great work!