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How to Write a School Newsletter
Last Updated: February 16, 2022
This article was co-authored by wikiHow Staff . Our trained team of editors and researchers validate articles for accuracy and comprehensiveness. wikiHow's Content Management Team carefully monitors the work from our editorial staff to ensure that each article is backed by trusted research and meets our high quality standards. This article has been viewed 130,708 times. Learn more...
Creating and publishing a school newsletter can be an excellent way to keep everyone in the community informed and up-to-date. Your school newsletter can be as complex or as simple as you'd like. However, the content of the newsletter should always be informative, so that it can best meet the needs of your community. Learning some of the standard practices behind creating a newsletter can help make your own school newsletter a success.
Sample Newsletter
Planning the Newsletter
- Should your newsletter focus on events or policies?
- Are you going to create and publish the newsletter on your own?
- Do you plan on building a team to publish the newsletter?
- How big do you want your newsletter to be?
- How many people do you want to reach with your newsletter?
- What should the newsletter be called?
- If your school is either very large or very active, you may want to publish more often or publish larger papers, less frequently.
- If you are unsure of how often to publish, you may try publishing monthly to begin with.
- You probably won't need to publish any editions over the summer months if your school isn't active during them.
- You'll likely want to include some sections or content for the students in the community.
- Your main readers are likely to be the parents and adults in the community.
- Your newsletter should also keep staff informed, describing current events at the school.
- You might also want to include content that supports your local community.
- It's important to remember that not everyone might be able to receive digital newsletters. You will likely want to print out physical copies as well.
- Physical copies will either need to be delivered or placed in a public space that allows for people to easily pick up a copy.
- Digital copies will likely be the most cost effective option and will allow you to reach a large number of readers.
Creating the Newsletter
- Adobe InDesign, Corel Draw, and QuarkXpress are all professional publishing software.
- Scribus is open-source desktop publishing software.
- You can make a newsletter using Microsoft Word or OpenOffice
- Some people find Google Docs to be a good solution, as it allows many people to collaborate on-line.
- Most publishing software will include a number of templates for you to choose from.
- You can try searching on-line for free school newsletter templates.
- Templates allow you to easily add your own information or update old information.
- A good template will have spaces for both your articles and photos to go with them.
- You might want to make templates for specific months. For example, you might have a template for February that has a heart theme because of Valentine's day.
- For text areas, it's a good idea to have predefined spaces for your title, headings, and the main body of text.
- Place the school name at the top of the front page.
- Add in a footer with page number, date, edition, or other information you might want to include.
- Putting your school logo somewhere on the front page can be a good idea.
- Include clip-art to give your newsletter an appealing and interesting look.
- You might want to have dedicated pages for certain content. For example, you could put contact information for school staff on the last page of your newsletter.
- You'll likely want to decide the basic layout for articles and pages. A simple two column layout can be a good way to start.
- A calendar of the year and upcoming events.
- Current news.
- Upcoming activities or programs.
- Community news.
- Changes in school policy.
- An opinion piece on the quality of cafeteria food might be nice. However, it's probably a better idea to include a lunch schedule instead.
- Detailing the repair process of a restroom might be too much information. It might be better to focus on things like how long the renovation took or how much it cost.
- Updates on school policies should always be included.
- You might want to highlight student achievements in your newsletter.
- It can be a good idea to have small articles that introduce new staff members.
- Asking students to write articles can be a good way to let them express a student's viewpoint and get in some writing practice.
- Having staff write articles can result in more detailed or informative pieces. For example, asking a math teacher to write about the new high-level math course would be a good idea.
- You might have students form a club around creating and publishing the newsletter.
- Asking for help with printing, publishing, or distributing might be necessary. You can check with local school staff, send a request for volunteers, or check with local businesses.
Delivering Your Newsletter
- You'll likely want to create a list of people who want to subscribe to your newsletter.
- Try leaving it near the entrances to your school or local businesses.
- Bring some copies to your nearby library to put out for people to take.
- Leaving some copies on the front desk of the main office can be a good idea.
- If you have the budget, your school may mail printed copies to the community.
- Give the paper to students to take home. Some have found that giving the newsletter to younger children increases the chances of it getting home. [10] X Research source
- You can use group emails to send out your newsletter.
- You might post new editions on your school's homepage.
- Use your school's social media accounts to let people know about new editions of your paper.
- You could build a dedicated website or blog to post new editions of your newsletter.
- Keep track of how many paper copies are taken by readers. This can tell you if you need to print more or less copies in the future.
- Counting how many copies are taken from different locations will tell you where the best places are to distribute the paper.
- For digital versions, you can track how many people download the paper and from where. This can help you learn if people are finding the paper on your school's homepage or from social media.
- You might include reader surveys that would allow for constructive feedback.
Community Q&A
You Might Also Like
- ↑ http://www.kidactivities.net/post/child-care-newsletter-tips-and-ideas.aspx
- ↑ https://safenewsletters.wordpress.com/2012/10/11/the-magic-behind-a-good-school-newsletter/
- ↑ http://www.educationworld.com/a_admin/admin/admin414_b.shtml
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School Magazine Essay & Paragraph
The tradition of publishing magazines in schools is very old. When there was no printing press, students published hand-written school magazines. Some schools and madrasas are still hanging handwritten wall magazines. In fact, a school magazine is very important for students. It arouses interest, courage, and thinking in the students and inspires them to write something creative. This is why students are often asked to write essays or paragraphs about a school magazine, describing its importance, advantages, disadvantages and uses.
How to write a good essay about a school magazine? We suggest that you brainstorm for your essay before you start writing. Take a look at the article How to Brainstorm for an Essay to learn about brainstorming. Then start your writing. First, in a brief introduction, write down why a school magazine is important or useful. Then say about its management, such as a committee is formed for this purpose with advisors, editors and other responsible persons. Your next paragraph may be about the content, such as who writes about what topics in this school magazine. Then in a few lines, there will be information about the financing of the magazine. Finally, conclude by repeating some of the most significant sentences in your essay.
Here is a bunch of short essays and paragraphs on a school magazine, ranging from 100 to 300 words, as examples. These will definitely help you.
Table of Contents
A School Magazine Composition, 250 Words
By: Haque , For class 7-8/JSC, 11-01-’22
Write a composition about the school magazine by using the following hints: (i) Introduction; (ii) Magazine committee; (iii) What it contains; (iv) Provides training; (v) Uses and importance; (vi) Conclusion.
A school magazine is published at regular intervals from a school . It is mainly the concern of the students. It is managed and published by the teachers and students.
A magazine committee consists of some teachers and students. The headmaster generally becomes the president. An assistant teacher edits the magazine. Some students help him as sub-editors.
It contains articles, stories, poems, essays, and pictures mainly written and drawn by the students and by the teachers. The editor’s comment inspires the students to perform their level best. Besides, he reviews the academic and athletic achievements of the school.
It is a powerful means by which writing habits can be developed among students. It provides excellent training to the students in the art of writing, editing, and managing the magazine. It increases the teacher-student relationship. They work together to publish the school magazine. A suitable name is given to it. The cover page is designed when everything is ready. It goes to the press for printing.
The school magazine serves useful purposes. First of all, it brings the students into close touch with one another. Secondly, the writers of historical, geographical, and scientific articles have to read books outside the range of their prescribed books. All these extend their knowledge. The effort to write an article for the magazine develops the thinking and reasoning power of the students.
The school magazine is very dear to every student. Especially to those students whose writing finds a place in it.
Related Post: My School Library Essay & Paragraph
A School Magazine Essay, 300 Words
By: Haque , For class 9-10/SSC, 23-01-’22
Introduction: Every year we publish a magazine in our school. The publication of the school magazine is an affair of the students of the school. It is a magazine for the students.
Committee/Formation: The headmaster calls a meeting of the students and the teachers, and forms a magazine committee. The headmaster acts as the president of the committee. The editor may be either a teacher or a student. Members are taken from the teachers and students. Two teachers are nominated by the headmaster. One of them is the advisor of the committee.
Contents: The editor invites poems, essays, short stories, and accounts of travel from the teachers and students. These articles and poems are selected and corrected, and then send to the press for printing. School magazines mainly deal with school affairs and publish such things as are helpful to students. They publish reports of the sports, games, and other activities of the students of the year. In short, a school magazine introduces a school and its one-year activities.
Fund: The students bear the expenses of its publication for which they annually pay a magazine fee to the school. The fund is also collected by selling space in the magazine for the advertisement of goods. The magazine is given free to the students. It is not sold to the public.
Utility of the School Magazine: School magazines offer training to young writers. They are very useful to students. They increase the knowledge of the students and develop their thinking and reasoning powers. Regular writing in the magazine gives a student a command over the language. It also gives them lessons of cooperation.
Conclusion: School magazines give students scope for becoming future poets, story writers, and journalists. Every school in the country must have a magazine of its own.
A School Magazine Essay in English, 300 Words
By: Haque , For class 9-10/SSC, 22-04-’22
Introduction: A school magazine is a literary publication of a school. In general, it is published annually or periodically. Like other schools, ours has also a school magazine. The name of our magazine is “The Light of Hope”. It is an annual publication.
How We Publish Our School Magazine: A magazine committee is formed in order to conduct the works of publication. Our head sir is the chairman and chief patron of the committee. A teacher is made the advisor. A student who is good at literature is made the editor of the magazine committee. Some students who are engaged in the committee work as assistant editors, business editors, proofreaders, etc. The publication of the magazine is mostly maintained by the students and the school fund.
Writing Printed in Our School Magazine: Our school magazine has both Bengali and English sections. Both teachers and students write in it. Generally, poems, short stories, jokes, one-act plays, riddles, and other educative writings are published in the magazine. After all the works of publication when the magazine reaches our hands, our joys know no bounds. The students feel very happy to see their writings in the printed book.
The Importance and Role of a School Magazine: The school magazine is an embodiment of our thinking. We can express the green ideas of our minds through this. Our school magazine lets us know more about literature, history, science , and more and encourages us to think of new things. It also helps us to do creative work. For this, the publication of a school magazine is very important.
Conclusion: A school magazine helps young students and writers develop their latent talents. It helps them develop thinking and writing skills. In fact, a school magazine is a periodical through which a person makes his debut in the world of literature. So, I think every school should have a school magazine.
A School Magazine Paragraph, 150 Words
A school magazine is a magazine published by a school. It contains writings contributed by the students and the teachers. Every school magazine has a committee to make it a success. The head of the committee is the editor of the magazine. Generally, he is appointed from the teachers. The other posts are usually filled by the students. A school magazine usually contains all sorts of writings such as poems, short stories, rhymes, articles, essays, reports, criticisms, short plays, comics, facts, special news, etc. A school magazine is, without any doubt, very important for the students. It is the first-hand experience of the students on creative writing. Students also practically learn about publishing a real magazine. Such learning experience certainly helps them in their future academic career. A school magazine helps students express their experiences and thoughts. It makes them confident and informed.
Check out 300+ English Essays & Paragraphs
About the Author
A teacher, writer and blogger, started allparagraph noting students search online for paragraphs on various topics, short and simple essays , edifying stories and other materials of study . In composing these lessons we have tried to use as simple language as possible, keeping young students in mind. If you find any text inappropriate, please let us know so we can make it more useful through necessary corrections and modifications. Thank you!
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The ultimate guide for your school newspaper
Schools newspapers are a great way to inform and entertain highschool and college communities, but they are often not taken seriously. Perhaps the reason for that is the fact that some school newspapers are indeed amateurish. But they shouldn’t be. With the right team and with the right tools, it’s possible to produce a highly professional school paper.
It can be a daunting task, at first. There are so many things that you need to do, from team management and training to article writing , photojournalism, design, production and online student publishing. You might need a little help. We are here to provide that. This article is named “the ultimate guide for your school newspaper” because we have covered all the aspects of producing a student newspaper and managing the editorial team.
We simply want you to be a little less stressed, while producing a quality student paper.
This article is for everybody who is involved in the newspaper production, regardless of the role. You’ll find some valuable tips for running and contributing to your school newspaper.
Here’s a quick overview:
Staff management for school newspapers
Types of articles, news writing, newspaper design, school newspaper templates.
- Online student publishing and production
Organizing a newspaper dream team (even if you’re not an expert)
Let’s talk about the structure of the student newspaper team. What roles must be present in your team? How should you structure it? How many people should be part of the team?
There are many different ways to organize the staff, but you’ll likely end up with a team that is more or less similar to traditional newspaper team structure, with the addition of the faculty advisor.
Let’s take a look at the typical roles in a newspaper team:
- Faculty advisor – gives the final approval to the school paper, is responsible for reading all articles and notifying the staff if a piece is not yet ready for press or if it doesn’t meet the newspaper’s standards
- Reporters (news, sports, photo, opinion, tech) – responsible for staying up to date with the latest and upcoming events happening in school. They should also stay informed on politics, sports, technology or culture according to the department they are in
- Editor / Department editors – editors plan and cover articles, proofread and edit reporter submissions. Department editors are responsible for all the articles that belong in their section and they work closely with the editors and reporters that are in their sections. They should be more experienced than editors, so the department editor role shouldn’t be assigned to a junior student
- Designers + Art director – The design/ art team is in charge of the visual aspect of the newspaper, including layouts, illustrations and everything that is related with the visual aspects. The art director oversees the entire design process, so he works closely with the designers
- Photo reporters + photo editor – in smaller teams the role of the photo editor is not necessarily required, because his responsibilities can be covered by the art director
- Production manager – responsible of setting the production schedule and making sure the all departments are meeting deadlines for copy, design, editing, proofreading and so on. He communicates directly with the printing house and with the technical department
- Technical staff – the technical department publishes the newspaper on the website. The online version of your newspaper can be an identical copy of the printed one, or you can decide to publish the articles on your website in a different format
- Business / Advertising – if you run ads in your school paper, you will need someone to mediate your relationship with advertisers and establish new business connections to grow the advertiser network
If there’s currently no structure in place or you have a very small team, you can start small. Baby steps.
You don’t necessarily need an entire department to cover a role. Sometimes a single student is enough, especially if your school newspaper isn’t long (eg. hire just one designer instead of an entire team + art director). You can also have students take on multiple roles (eg: a student can be both editor and production manager). In some cases the faculty advisor becomes so involved in the production that he acts as a production manager.
Make sure each one of these roles is covered, and start from there. As your team grows you will need more structure and clearly defined roles.
Write clear job descriptions for each role
This way each student will understand his place and purpose in the team, will know exactly who he has to report to, what is expected, duties and responsibilities.
Even though job descriptions are not a standard practice in school newsrooms, writing them will be very rewarding. Yes, it will take some time, but it will not be wasted time, for sure. These job descriptions will help students perform better, and it will make the manager’s role so much easier.
Hiring for school newspapers
Some colleges offer paid positions for the newspaper staff, but most high schools and colleges do not. However, there should still be a “hiring” or selection process in place.
Many students are interested in becoming involved in the production of the school newspaper, for various reasons: it’s fun, it’s a great learning experience, it looks good on college or job applications. That’s what it’s like to work on a college newspaper!
These are all valid reasons to join the school newspaper crew, but not everybody gets to be a part of it, if there are too many people interested in a position.
The best way to figure out if a student is a great candidate for a job is by interviewing him. These interviews usually take place in the first months of the first semester. After you finish all the interviews select the best candidates and let them know they’ve been selected.
When you’re a part of a student newspaper team, you know that you’ll be there for limited amount of time. The team will change every single year: the most experienced student journalists will graduate and leave the school, and a new of inexperienced juniors will need onboarding. This is why training and onboarding is a never ending process in the school newsroom. It’s a fact of life, and it’s definitely a challenge, but it can be dealt with.
Encourage the more experienced team members to train and coach the new hires. But oftentime, that won’t be enough, because not everyone is willing to take on this responsibility. Sometimes, they might need a little push. You might need to assign a trainer for each new person that joins the team.
You can also invest time in creating a coaching manual for trainers and guideline manuals for trainees. It will simplify the onboarding process and reduce the hours spent coaching new colleagues.
Ground rules
College newspapers function under the protection of the First Amendment, so students can truly express themselves and their opinions, even when their views are contradictory to those of the school. Yet, that doesn’t mean that the school has no control whatsoever over what gets to be published. The faculty advisor has the legal right to impose certain rules and standards, if the purpose is educating students.
If the faculty advisor isn’t happy with the quality of an article he may suggest edits or reject it altogether. This doesn’t mean that he’s censoring free speech.
There should also be some ground rules regarding copyrights, plagiarism, subjectivism and other sensitive issues such as violence and profanity.
School newspapers and regular newspapers are structured in a similar manner, even though the topics are tailored to the audience. If you need some ideas for articles, take a look at the article types below. It will help you get organized and produce a well rounded newspaper.
School news
News articles should cover various events, policies and other school news that are interesting for students. These news don’t have to be limited to your high school or college. You can write about national and even worldwide news, but only if they provide useful information.
For example, a worldwide student art competition could be the subject of a newspaper article. National laws and legislation regarding schools and education should also be covered in news articles, because they concern all students and will impact their lives. School news should be presented in an objective manner, presenting facts, not rumors or assumptions. They should be based on research and present different points of views.
Feature story
(over 1000 words) Each newspaper edition is likely to have a feature story. It’s the longest article in the paper, and the most in-depth. Feature stories revolve around facts, but they take a story to the next level by presenting context, quotes, reasons why it happened, ramifications of the story and implications. The article shouldn’t involve personal bias. It should be based on an elaborate investigation made by the journalist, interviewing multiple accounts. However, the feature isn’t limited to facts, it gives the journalist a little room for interpretation and embedding his opinion in the piece, in a subtle way.
The topic varies. It could be some big news, an in-depth analysis of a social school phenomenon, a new policy or something else.
(under 500 words)
Unlike the previous 2 types of articles, the editorial is an opinion piece. Still, the writer shouldn’t express his own views, but the opinion of the entire editorial staff.
For that reason, the editorial is usually not signed. It’s a piece of commentary that appears to be written by an entire team. That’s why the writer/ editor shouldn’t talk about himself using the singular form of the first person: I, me, myself.
The editorial should be entertaining or argumentative. In order to achieve that you can start by making a claim that could be controversial, then proceed by explaining your reasons and clarifying your claim. This flow will keep readers engaged. Some of them will agree with your point of view. Others won’t, but that’s alright. The purpose is to challenge readers.
Topics: school rules, policies, teaching methods, advice, announcements, school news
Just like editorials, columns are opinion-based articles. The content and topics are very much like an editorial. But the main difference between an editorial piece and a column is the signature. The editorial goes unsigned because it represents the collective views of editorial staff, but the columnist will publish his piece under his name. That’s why columnists can write about their opinions using the singular form of the first person. Sometimes an editor will publish a series of articles on the same topic/ similar topics, through several issues.
All of the big newspapers publish reviews because they help the general public make decisions. There’s no reason why school newspaper shouldn’t publish review articles on various topics: school textbooks, movies, books, or even classes.
Start by writing a short description of the thing that you are reviewing. Then add details about your personal experience. Include details about pros, cons, value for the money, performance mentions of other reviews, comparison to similar products. Try to be as objective and unbiased as possible.
Don’t forget to write a conclusion in which you summarize the review and give a verdict: whether you would recommend the product or not.
Promotional pieces
Companies pay money to have advertorials inserted in newspapers. The school context is different, but you will still need to include some promotional articles every once in a while. It may be for the school’s art or sports club, for a conference organized by the school or for a different event.
Your article should offer useful details about the event/ club that is promoted and it should also present the benefits it offers for students in order to encourage them to participate / join a program / buy a ticket.
Educational articles
This category includes tutorials and how-to articles with useful tips. Topics vary, but they should be school related, at least slightly. Here are a few examples: how to deal with stress, mnemonic learning techniques, tips for integrated digital learning, utilizing school resources, etc. These types of articles will help students deal with certain issues that almost everybody encounters.
If you have a talented illustrator in your crew, you should make the most of his skills. Assign a space in your newspaper’s layout specifically for the cartoon. The topic should be something school related, something that students can relate to. The cartoon will put a smile on the reader’s face.
Producing a professional school newspaper requires many skills and great teamwork. But building a team of talented journalists takes time and training. If you’re working with inexperienced student reporters and editors, you should start by teaching them the most basic news writings principles. Every journalist should know these.
The inverted pyramid style
The inverted pyramid refers to a very specific structure of a news article, which places the most important information at the beginning of the story. The information that is less vital to the reader’s understanding comes later in the story. This is how you should present school news.
The first paragraph which contains the most important details is “the lead”. The lead contains a very short and concise summary of the story. They should make sure that the first paragraph provides answers to the “5 Ws”:
Continue with a few paragraphs that contain other important details of the story.
Writers should also integrate relevant quotes from their interviews with witnesses, sources or other people involved in the event. The next paragraphs should include other general or background information.
Students decide what articles interest them from the school newspaper by simply scanning the newspaper and reading headlines. Every great writer understands the importance of a good, attention-grabbing headline, and young journalists should know it too.
A well written headline is acts as a hook that makes readers want to read the entire piece. There are different types of headlines: humourous, mysterious, informative. The headline’s style should match the article. There are many other things to consider, but you can start by reading these tips for writing great headlines .
There’s a lot of work that goes into an article. Sometimes the journalist has to gather all the information himself. In other cases, it involves interviewing witnesses or experts. There’s also that scenario in which the student will do research and find useful information in books, websites or other publications.
Regardless of how you collect data, you should always cite your source. It will add credibility to your story. It goes without saying that all journalists, including students, should check the reliability of their sources. Don’t just pick up information from dubious online sites.
In some cases your sources will ask you to protect their identity. It will probably not happen very often in the school context, but if they do, you must respect their wish.
Editing and proofreading
Make sure that the most experienced editors are reviewing and editing every article before publication. Obviously, the writer should be the first person to edit and check for spelling & grammar mistakes. But that’s not enough, not if you have high standards for your school’s paper (which… you should).
Submit each piece for peer review. The reviewer should analyze grammar, spelling, tone and voice, as well as other standards imposed by the production manager. Encourage students to provide useful, objective feedback. Don’t get offended if they make a lot of comments and suggestions. Writing for a school newspaper is a learning experience. You can’t get better if you don’t learn from your mistakes.
Obviously, the reviews should always be made by an experienced editor.
We recommend the art director and production manager to make a style manual because it will help students get familiar with the design guidelines and learn to respect them. The manual might change over time. You don’t have to provide extremely detailed guidelines to make it useful for newspaper design.
The newspaper style guide should cover the general layout, number of pages, font types and sizes, guidelines for photos and cropping. These rules will guarantee some visual consistency for your future newspaper editions. Ask all designers to get familiar with the rules, before they start working on their first assignment. It will help save a lot of time and headaches for the art director/ production manager.
The newsroom is a very busy and exciting place. Everybody works on something, and the production manager has to coordinate everything, making sure the design and the copy complement each other. Communication between designers, art director, editors and production manager is key. It’s challenging, but rewarding at the same time. Designers will work with dummy texts at the beginning, until editors finish their part. It also means that they will have to make edits to the design and make small adjustments so that everything looks great.
If you are a designer working for a school paper, learn about grids, composition and editorial design principles. Your design should look great and provide a great reading experience.
Perfect for online publishing and ready for print
We made a few school newspaper templates that are free to edit online and to publish them digitally. These templates are the perfect solution for very small or inexperienced teams, because they will save you a LOT of time.
Take a look the images below to see some of our school paper templates.
You won’t even need a designer or art director if you know how to edit and adapt these newspaper templates to your needs.
Start editing your favorite newspaper template very easily. Just click on images and register for an account. Then you can customize these layouts in the editor with a simple click on these images.
You can add more pages, duplicate pages, delete pages and do extensive customization.
There’s also another option for advanced designers. They can create their own layouts from scratch in our online editor, starting with blank pages.
Or, you can even upload a ready-made PDF to Flipsnack and we will turn it into a beautiful page-flip document that’s highly shareable.
When you’re done editing, proofreading and you get the final approval from the production manager, you can go ahead and download a PDF copy of the newspaper design on your computer. It requires a premium subscription, but it’s worthed. The downloaded PDF is printable, so you can take it to print right away.
Online student publishing and production
Nowadays many newspapers are digital-only, for various reasons. It completely removes printing costs and it’s eco-friendly. No more paper, no more trees being cut! We think this is a great solution for schools, especially because the young generations of students are digital natives.
If you decide to try online student publishing, you have 2 options: publish the newspaper as a website/ blog or publish it digitally as an online newspaper with turning pages. The second option is probably easier to produce, because it doesn’t require constant updating. The stylish look is an added bonus. And let’s not forget about the fact that you can start from a school newspaper template.
The digital version of your student newspaper is free with Flipsnack. We will host it online on our most secure servers, so you don’t have to worry about hosting (or anything else, for that matter). All you will have to do is share the link with students, or integrate the newspaper in your school’s website (very easily) with the help of the embed code. Anyone can do it, it doesn’t require tech skills.
— Hope you found this useful. What are your biggest challenges in writing for / designing or producing your school’s newspaper?
16 Comments
Thanks for this. As a newly appointed editor in chief (my 1st time), I have to re-access my knowledge about student paper and the ways so I’m glad I found this site!
[…] for the school newspaper is a blessing in disguise. As a kid, you may be scared at the beginning, but after you have written […]
As a newly appointed EIC, I think that being part of the editorial board is an indicator that we are indeed the cream of the crop, a thing that we must really be grateful for. But before proceeding to the complexes, it is vital to know first the basics, thanks to this! :-)
So glad that you found this useful!
This was very helpful!
I really appreciate your tip to have someone be in charge of the layout when you publish your newspaper so it looks natural. My wife and I have been thinking of getting our daughter into the school newspaper so she can make friends. I will be sure to tell her to ask about a layout specialist.
Hello. I find this article useful to my study. I would like to ask for the complete name of the author and the date of its publication so I can have the citation.
Hi Zacharia, here are the requested details: Author name: Janina Moza Date of publication: Feb 8, 2018
What I am looking for for my middle school journalism class is the ability for the students to have access to designing and writing directly on the program and then I complete the final editing before publication. Is this possible with Flipsnack? Can the students have their own individual access to the paper? The last online newspaper we did only allowed for me to do everything.
Hi Shannon! We highly recommend getting a classroom plan for your class: Classroom plan It includes up to 30 connected student accounts, fully controlled by the teacher, so you would be able to do the final editing on their designs. With this plan students can work on projects at the same time in Flipsnack (but the program might not save all their edits properly if they all work on the same project). If you’re looking for a free option, you can use Flipsnack to create projects that are up to 30 pages long, but it will only allow one user account. So you would have to use the same account as the student to log in and make the final edits.
This article is very useful? Thank you so much?
Hello.. thank you so much for sharing you expertise on these matter. I’m so thankful i found this site. I’ve been looking for this kind, a comprehensive guide for a school paper publication. It was so helpful especially for us neophytes.
Thank you very much for your kind words! We also have another article on the same subject. Check it here . Happy reading! :)
Hi. Your blog is easy to comprehend yet substancial. I can’t specifically find a direct answer to this. Can a published newspaper have multilingual articles in one issue? Like the news sections have an article written in full english while other news are in a foreign language. It’s a high school paper by the way. Thanks
Hello, Nory! Yes, you have the total freedom to insert multilingual articles in one issue if you want. Create your high school paper however you want! Have a nice day! :)
Hello, thank you so much for this article. I am about to start a college newspaper and I find the information here helpful
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- Education /
Article on Importance of Education
- Updated on
- Nov 22, 2022
Education entails acquiring knowledge to have a greater understanding of the various disciplines that will be used in our everyday lives. ‘Education’ refers to the information we gain and experience outside of books or classrooms, as well as the knowledge that we receive and experience in schools, our homes, and as members of society. Our ideas on life alter as a result of learning, education is crucial for personal development and growth in society . In this blog, we will see why we need education for growth and will also look at some articles on the importance of education .
This Blog Includes:
Importance of education, mental aspect of education’s importance, articles on importance of education, article on importance of education: 100 words, article on importance of education: 200 words, article on importance of education: 350 words, article on importance of women’s education.
The value of education at a much younger age. Our first tryst with learning begins at home, and our first teachers are our parents, grandparents, and often siblings. The importance of education lies in its continuity, learning is a lifetime process that will stop with our death. It is the foundation for the development of a healthy individual and society. Our world cannot have a bright future if our culture lacks education.
Education is the key to change. It is an important tool that allows a person to understand his or her rights and responsibilities to his or her family, society, and nation. It improves a person’s ability to view the world and to fight against misdoings such as injustice, corruption, and violence, among other things.
Education is meant to hone talent, sharpen our mindsets and educate us on a myriad of things. In school, we cover a variety of topics such as history, arithmetic, geography, politics, and so on. These subjects sharpen children’s minds and allow the kid to absorb knowledge from all subjects, his or her mental level is increased. Here are some cognitive benefits of learning and education that ensure growth and development in children:
Education’s importance in our lives provides us with stability in our everyday lives. Everything may be split, but not your education, you must be told. You can improve your chances of getting a better job with the aid of your degree and expertise.
Financial Security
Our financial stability is helped by education. Higher-qualified individuals receive higher-paying employment in this era, allowing them to guarantee their future.
Self-dependency
Education teaches us to be self-sufficient in our daily lives. A person’s education is his alone, and with it, he may feel safe and self-sufficient.
Equality is a right that everyone deserves. If everyone had the opportunity to pursue higher education, there would be a greater likelihood that everyone would earn a large sum of money, and there would be less disparities across social classes. It aids in the pursuit of equality.
Confidence is one of the finest aspects of success. Education boosts a person’s self-assurance. You can go further into a topic that you are already familiar with. With the information you’ve obtained through your schooling, you can converse about that issue far better than others.
The process of learning and increasing abilities through courses, literature, training and other mediums is known as education. It assists us in developing our talents and seeking employment to suit our requirements and obligations.
Education is vital to one’s success in life. It is essential for an individual’s entire growth. The process of learning and improving one’s skills is referred to as education. Wisdom and the ability to handle challenges come with knowledge. Education enhances one’s quality of life while also granting social recognition. Though education is essential for everyone, the need for it is most acute during childhood. Starting with children under the age of 10, school education is critical. It serves as a solid basis for their life skills and goals. A person who lacks education is powerless and vulnerable. H/She will find it difficult to deal with life’s challenges.
Education is a valuable tool for gaining learning and wisdom. Though books are essential to education, the notion encompasses more than just books and bookish knowledge. It isn’t required for education to be only based on books.
The most important goal of education is to help people with how to read and write. The first step toward literacy is reading and writing. Education provides a person with endless opportunities for growth and advancement. People who have had an education tend to be more calm and self-assured. People who have been educated are disciplined and understand the importance of time. Education allows a person to be more expressive and opinionated. H/She was able to readily communicate his/her viewpoints, which were supported by a clear aim and rationale.
Education benefits not just the individual but also the community. The most important aspect of education is that it goes from one individual to another, then throughout society, and eventually throughout the country. An educated individual makes an effort to teach and inspire everyone with whom he or she comes into contact. Education brings one up to speed on technological advancements as well. A well-educated person can easily adjust to technological developments. Education, more than anything else, is a source of hope. The desire for a better life; the desire for a wealthy and poverty-free existence.
Must Read: Importance of School Education
Human education is a critical instrument in their lives. It is a significant distinction between a civilized and an undisciplined individual. Even if the country’s literacy rate has increased in recent years, more individuals need to be made aware of the importance of education. Every child, whether a male or a girl, must attend school and not drop out. Education is beneficial not just to the individual but also to society. A well-educated individual is a valuable asset to society, contributing to its social and economic development. Such a person is always willing to assist society and the country. It is true to say that education is a stairway to a person’s and a nation’s achievement.
Education makes a person productive, allowing him or her to contribute to society in a positive way. It teaches us how to face many challenges and conquer them. A well-educated individual understands how to act in a polite and non-offensive manner. It shows us how to live a disciplined life while yet making a respectable living. Our future is built on the basis of education. Education is also the sole weapon that may be used to combat numerous issues such as illiteracy, poverty, unemployment, and so on. A person’s education makes them more sensitive to the predicament of their fellow beings. A well-educated individual not only comprehends the issues but also possesses the essential abilities to address them.
An educated individual possesses competent skills and is more capable than someone who is uneducated. However, it is incorrect to think that education alone ensures success. Indeed, success necessitates a solid education, as well as devotion, attention, and hard effort. An educated individual is more sensible and capable of rational thought.
Education allows a person to become self-sufficient. An educated individual does not rely on others and is capable of meeting his or her own requirements. A well-educated person also educates their family, and education benefits, not just the individual but also society and the nation. Education has a significant influence on our outlook, making us more optimistic about life and its objectives.
Also Read: Importance of Education in Child’s Life
There was a period when it was considered that women didn’t need to be educated. We’ve now realized the importance of women’s education . The modern era is the phase of women’s awakening. In every aspect of life, women are striving to compete with males. Many individuals reject female education, claiming that women’s rightful domain is the home, and therefore that money spent on female education is squandered. This viewpoint is incorrect since female education has the potential to bring about a silent revolution in society.
Female education has numerous advantages; educated women may contribute significantly to the country’s growth by sharing the burdens of males in several fields. They may contribute to society as teachers, lawyers, physicians, and administrators, as well as play a key part in wartime. In this time of economic distress, education is a blessing for women. The days of wealth and prosperity are long gone. Middle-class families are finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet these days. Female education is important for a country’s growth, thus it should be supported.
Everyone has hope for a better life if they have an education. It’s a type of magic that works in a person’s life to make it far better than it would be if he didn’t have knowledge. To sum the blog, we believe that everyone should be educated so that they can contribute to making our country proud. Increasing literacy rates can prevent tens of thousands of crimes. Every country should encourage its citizens to receive an education.
Also Read: Importance of Education for Growth and Betterment
This was all about articles on the importance of education! We hope the information provided was helpful! Follow Leverage Edu on Facebook , Youtube , Instagram and LinkedIn for more educational content and exciting quizzes! Call us immediately at 1800 57 2000 for a free 30-minute counselling session.
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If you have a class filled with newshounds eager to write their own front-page stories about classroom events or the latest happenings in the cafeteria, Scholastic Teachables has you covered with ready-to-go resources for your young journalists.
These 5 resources will help students in grades 3–5 learn about the newswriting process and how to add descriptive elements that will engage readers. Not only will they learn how to write a news article, students will also learn important content-area vocabulary that gives new meaning to words like dummy , bleeds , and widow . Before you know it, your classroom will be a busy newsroom filled with young reporters looking to break the next big story!
1. Newspaper Writing: Narrative Learning Center
This narrative learning center specifically designed for newspaper writing helps students report facts and write a compelling news story that will engage their readers. The printable includes an introductory lesson, student directions, model writing samples, graphic organizers, differentiation tips, and an assessment rubric.
2. Newspaper Article: Leveled Graphic Organizers
This lesson with tiered graphic organizers will help your cub reporters and front-page newshounds learn the basics of news writing. Students will write a news article that opens with a lead, includes who, what, when, where, and why, and presents details in the body of the story.
3. Newspaper Jargon: Grade 4 Vocabulary
To be true news writers, students need to know the industry jargon. This vocabulary packet teaches students what words like bleeds , dummy , and stringer commonly mean in newsrooms.
4. The Daily News: Language Arts Bulletin Board
This bulletin board resource not only turns your classroom into a newsroom, it also helps students develop the speaking, listening, writing, and reading skills they need to run it effectively.
5. Plenty of Plastic: Grade 5 Opinion Writing Lesson
Every respected newspaper has a robust editorial section. This writing lesson helps create persuasive opinion writers by encouraging students to take a written stance for or against plastic bags.
Scholastic Teachables helps teachers like you build the next generation of journalists and newshounds. Even better, these teaching materials are ready to go, saving you time when you need it most during the school year. The printables are free to subscribers of Scholastic Teachables or are available for individual purchase. Log in or subscribe today for teaching tools to help your students write news articles that can make a difference in your classroom, school, and community!
How to Write an Article
THE CRAFT OF ARTICLE WRITING
Writing is a complex skill. A very complex skill.
Not only do we put students under pressure to master the inconsistent spelling patterns and complex grammar of the English language, but we require them to know how to write for a variety of purposes in both fiction and nonfiction genres.
On top of this, writing is just one aspect of one subject among many.
The best way to help our students to overcome the challenge of writing in any genre is to help them to break things down into their component parts and give them a basic formula to follow.
In this article, we will break article writing down into its components and present a formulaic approach that will provide a basic structure for our students to follow.
Once this structure is mastered, students can, of course, begin to play with things.
But, until then, there is plenty of room within the discipline of the basic structure for students to express themselves in the article form.
A COMPLETE UNIT ON TEACHING NEWS REPORTING IN 2022
With over FORTY GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS in this ENGAGING UNIT, you can complete a WEEKLY journalistic / Newspaper reporting task ALL YEAR LONG in 2022 as classwork or homework.
These templates take students through a PROVEN four-step article writing process on some AMAZING images. Students will learn how to.
WHAT IS AN ARTICLE?
The Cambridge Dictionary defines an article as, “a piece of writing on a particular subject in a newspaper or magazine, or on the internet.”
An article’s shape and structure will vary depending on whether it’s intended for publication in a newspaper, magazine, or online.
Each of these media has its own requirements. For example, a magazine feature article may go into great depth on a topic, allowing for long, evocative paragraphs of exposition, while an online blog article may be full of lots of short paragraphs that get to the point without too much fanfare.
Each of these forms makes different demands on the writer, and it’s for this reason that most newspapers, magazines, and big websites provide writers with specific submission guidelines.
So, with such diverse demands placed on article writers, how do we go about teaching the diverse skill required to our students?
Luckily, we can break most types of articles down into some common key features.
Below we’ll take a look at the most important of these, along with an activity to get your students practicing each aspect right away.
Finally, we’ll take a look at a few general tips on article writing.
KEY WRITTEN FEATURES OF AN ARTICLE
The headline.
The purpose of the headline is to capture the reader’s attention and let them know what the article is about. All of this in usually no more than 4 or 5 words!
There is an art to good headline writing and all sorts of literary devices (e.g alliteration and metaphor) can be used to create an eye-catching and intriguing headline.
The best way for students to learn how headlines work is to view some historical samples.
Newspaper headlines especially are known for being short and pithy. Here are just a few examples to whet the appetite:
- Hitler Is Dead
- Lincoln Shot
- Men Walk On The Moon
- Berlin Wall Crumbles
You could encourage students to find some pithy examples of their own. It’s amazing how much information can be condensed into so few words – this is the essence of good headline writing.
Headlines Practice Activity:
Give students opportunities to practice headline writing in isolation from article writing itself. For example, take sample stories from newspapers and magazines and challenge students to write new headlines for them. Set a word limit appropriate to the skills and age of the students. For example, younger, more inexperienced students might write 9-word headlines, while older, more skilled students might thrive with the challenge of a 4-word limit.
THE SUBHEADING
Subheadings give the reader more information on what the article is about. For this reason, they’re often a little longer than headlines and use a smaller font, though still larger (or in bold) than the font used in the body of the text.
Subheadings provide a little more of the necessary detail to inform readers what’s going on. If a headline is a jab, the subheading is the cross.
In magazines and online articles especially, there are often subheadings throughout the article. In this context, they let the reader know what each paragraph/section is about.
Subheadings also help the reader’s eye to scan the article and quickly get a sense of the story, for the writer they help immensely to organize the structure of the story.
Practice Activity:
One way to help organize paragraphs in an article is to use parallel structure.
Parallel structure is when we use similar words, phrases, and grammar structures. We might see this being used in a series of subheadings in a ‘How to’ article where the subheadings all start with an imperative such as choose , attach , cut , etc.
Have you noticed how all the sections in this ‘Key Features’ part of this article start simply with the word ‘The’? This is another example of a parallel structure.
Yet another example of parallel structure is when all the subheadings appear in the form of a question.
Whichever type of parallel structure students use, they need to be sure that they all in some way relate to the original title of the article.
To give students a chance to practice writing subheadings using parallel structure, instruct them to write subheadings for a piece of text that doesn’t already have them.
THE BODY PARAGRAPHS
Writing good, solid paragraphs is an art in itself. Luckily, you’ll find comprehensive guidance on this aspect of writing articles elsewhere on this site.
But, for now, let’s take a look at some general considerations for students when writing articles.
The length of the paragraphs will depend on the medium. For example, for online articles paragraphs are generally brief and to the point. Usually no more than a sentence or two and rarely more than five.
This style is often replicated in newspapers and magazines of a more tabloid nature.
Short paragraphs allow for more white space on the page or screen. This is much less daunting for the reader and makes it easier for them to focus their attention on what’s being said – a crucial advantage in these attention-hungry times.
Lots of white space makes articles much more readable on devices with smaller screens such as phones and tablets. Chunking information into brief paragraphs enables online readers to scan articles more quickly too, which is how much of the information on the internet is consumed – I do hope you’re not scanning this!
Conversely, articles that are written more formally, for example, academic articles, can benefit from longer paragraphs which allow for more space to provide supporting evidence for the topic sentence.
Deciding on the length of paragraphs in an article can be done by first thinking about the intended audience, the purpose of the article, as well as the nature of the information to be communicated.
A fun activity to practice paragraphing is to organize your students into groups and provide them with a copy of an article with the original paragraph breaks removed. In their groups, students read the article and decide on where they think the paragraphs should go.
To do this successfully, they’ll need to consider the type of publication they think the article is intended for, the purpose of the article, the language level, and the nature of the information.
When the groups have finished adding in their paragraph breaks they can share and compare their decisions with the other groups before you finally reveal where the breaks were in the original article.
Article Photos and Captions
Photos and captions aren’t always necessary in articles, but when they are, our students must understand how to make the most of them.
Just like the previous key features on our list, there are specific things students need to know to make the most of this specific aspect of article writing.
The internet has given us the gift of access to innumerable copyright-free images to accompany our articles, but what criteria should students use when choosing an image?
To choose the perfect accompanying image/s for their article, students need to identify images that match the tone of their article.
Quirky or risque images won’t match the more serious tone of an academic article well, but they might work perfectly for that feature of tattoo artists.
Photos are meant to bring value to an article – they speak a thousand words after all. It’s important then that the image is of a high enough resolution that the detail of those ‘thousand words’ is clearly visible to the reader.
Just as the tone of the photo should match the tone of the article, the tone of the caption should match the tone of the photo.
Captions should be informative and engaging. Often, the first thing a reader will look at in an article is the photos and then the caption. Frequently, they’ll use the information therein to decide whether or not they’ll continue to read.
When writing captions, students must avoid redundancy. They need to add information to that which is already available to the reader by looking at the image.
There’s no point merely describing in words what the reader can clearly see with their own two eyes. Students should describe things that are not immediately obvious, such as date, location, or the name of the event.
One last point, captions should be written in the present tense. By definition, the photo will show something that has happened already. Despite this, students should write as if the action in the image is happening right now.
Remind students that their captions should be brief; they must be careful not to waste words with such a tight format.
For this fun activity, you’ll need some old magazines and newspapers. Cut some of the photos out minus their captions. All the accompanying captions should be cut out and jumbled up. It’s the students’ job to match each image with the correct accompanying caption.
Students can present their decisions and explanations when they’ve finished.
A good extension exercise would be to challenge the students to write a superior caption for each of the images they’ve worked on.
TOP 5 TIPS FOR ARTICLE WRITING
Now your students have the key features of article writing sewn up tightly, let’s take a look at a few quick and easy tips to help them polish up their general article writing skills.
1. Read Widely – Reading widely, all manner of articles, is the best way students can internalize some of the habits of good article writing. Luckily, with the internet, it’s easy to find articles on any topic of interest at the click of a mouse.
2. Choose Interesting Topics – It’s hard to engage the reader when the writer is not themselves engaged. Be sure students choose article topics that pique their own interest (as far as possible!).
3. Research and Outline – Regardless of the type of article the student is writing, some research will be required. The research will help an article take shape in the form of an outline. Without these two crucial stages, articles run the danger of wandering aimlessly and, worse still, of containing inaccurate information and details.
4. Keep Things Simple – All articles are about communicating information in one form or another. The most effective way of doing this is to keep things easily understood by the reader. This is especially true when the topic is complex.
5. Edit and Proofread – This can be said of any type of writing, but it still bears repeating. Students need to ensure they comprehensively proofread and edit their work when they’ve ‘finished’. The importance of this part of the writing process can’t be overstated.
And to Conclude…
With time and plenty of practice, students will soon internalize the formula as outlined above.
This will enable students to efficiently research, outline, and structure their ideas before writing.
This ability, along with the general tips mentioned, will soon enable your students to produce well-written articles on a wide range of topics to meet the needs of a diverse range of audiences.
HUGE WRITING CHECKLIST & RUBRIC BUNDLE
TUTORIAL VIDEO ON HOW TO WRITE AN ARTICLE
The content for this page has been written by Shane Mac Donnchaidh. A former principal of an international school and English university lecturer with 15 years of teaching and administration experience. Shane’s latest Book, The Complete Guide to Nonfiction Writing , can be found here. Editing and support for this article have been provided by the literacyideas team.
Explore our Premium Teaching Unit on NEWS REPORTS
How to write a news article
Writing a news story or newspaper article for school assignment can be stressful to many students. Unless you’re a Journalism major , this is the first time most students have ever written a news article or paper of any kind. If you need to know how to write a newspaper article, read on for great tips, examples, structure, and outline.
When writing your newspaper article, make sure it has several components.
- The first component should be an introductory paragraph where the reader learns who, what, when and where.
- The second component is body paragraphs . These will feature quotes from people such as the reporter or eyewitnesses to the event.
- A conclusion. Conclude with a closing paragraph that references all information in your article.
You may want to have a “by line” at the beginning of your article where you state who wrote the article. The by line could also include your position or role in a news event or a quote from a person that was interviewed for the article.
How to write a feature article
A good news article can be one of the most challenging types of writing for someone to do well, but also one of the most rewarding when it goes over well with an audience. In fact, many journalists will tell you that they find this type of work very difficult and stressful, since there are so many guidelines and details that need to be followed to produce a great piece. Before you attempt a story, it’s a good idea to learn what makes writing a news article work well.
Let us review the process of writing a newspaper article for school.
How to Write a News Story – 10 Steps
Here are 7 steps in writing a good news story for school or for your english or journalism class:
Choose a current, newsworthy event or topic to write about.
Conduct timely, in-person interviews with witnesses.
- Establish the “Four Main Ws”
Plan your article
Create an outline, write your first draft, insert quotations, research additional facts and figures, read your article out loud before publication, polish up your article for publishing.
Each of the step is discussed below:
First of all, you will need to choose a good topic for your article. Try to find something that is currently happening and important in the world. If you’re writing an article for school, it’s best if you pick something that interests you personally so that you can do some research about it and make your opinion known in the article.
How to find a news topic to write about:
- Look for popular news stories on the internet at websites like CNN News or BBC News .
- Watch the TV to see if any current topics are being covered.
- Ask your parents what they’ve been watching on TV and why it’s important.
- Read the newspaper to see what is trending.
- Read the flyers and posters around your house and school for inspiration!
For example:
Let’s say you want to write about the 2016 U.S elections and who you think will win the presidency. This is a good topic because politics are always ongoing and there is never a lack of topics for debates. You can look on news websites or search on social media websites such as Facebook to find new, incoming events that might be newsworthy. Or, you can also just stay up to date on the news by watching your local channel or reading the newspaper.
Once you have a identified a news topic, it’s time to get started!
This is a really important part of how to write a news story for your class or for your school newspaper. You need to get information from people who were actually there so that you can write about their experiences. Some of these people may include eyewitnesses or police officers who arrived at the scene of an accident. You should also interview people who have been affected by the issue or event that you are writing about.
For example, if you were writing a story on bullying in your school, you would want to talk with bullies and victims of bullying as well as teachers and staff members.
You should ask each person the same set of questions so that their answers can be compared later. You can also make it easier to compare answers by numbering each question in order.
For example, if you are interviewing three students about their experiences with bullying at your school, you could ask them questions 1-3 for the first student and 4-6 for the second student all while recording their responses or having another person take notes.
- What is your name?
- How long have you been bullied for?
- Have you ever seen another person being bullied at school?
Make sure to give each person a chance to tell you what they think about the issue, solution, or event that you are writing about. This means that you will have to ask them questions that they might not have felt comfortable answering on their own, such as “What do you think should be done to stop bullying?”
Sometimes people may not want to talk with you, but this doesn’t necessarily mean that there is something wrong with what they have to say.
Establish the “Five Main Ws”
This is also called the Five Ws and One H. You should always answer Who, What, When, Where, Why and How when writing a newspaper article. The sixth question that journalists ask is “How much?” but in some cases, this can be included in the “What” question.
- Who: Who is the story about?
- What: What happened?
- When: When did it happen?
- Where: Where did it take place?
- Why: Why did this happen?
Before you start writing about an event or story, make sure that you understand what is happening and how it happened. You need to figure out the who, what, when, where and why of the story. You can do this by conducting good, in-person interviews with witnesses, experts and eyewitnesses of the event you are writing about.
List the important facts about your story. What makes this newsworthy to readers? Do you have any breaking details or hints of drama in your piece?
List possible interviewees for your article. You’ll want to include different people who could provide different perspectives on the topic if at all possible. For example, if you are writing an article about a new community centre opening in your neighbourhood, you will want to include the director of the community centre and other people who live in your area.
A good outline should be a short paragraph or a number of points that describes what you plan on writing about and how you intend to structure it. You should include information such as the topic, who you will be interviewing and what your article will include.
Now it’s time to put everything you’ve learned into practice! Make sure that your article flows well and is free of spelling or grammar errors before moving on to the next step. The most important thing here is to make sure you don’t miss anything, so make sure to read over your story a few times before proceeding further.
Once you have your facts straight about your article topic, it’s time to include quotes from people that were actually there and saw what happened. Try to use quotes that best describe the event in order to paint a vivid picture.
This is where you will include any additional information that you have found about your article topic during your research. You can also use this space to talk about various statistics related to the topic, for example how many people died because of the cause of your story or what cities are most affected by the event or issue.
This is an important part of how to write a news story because if you read it out loud, you can catch any mistakes that may have slipped through in your writing process. No matter how great the rest of your article was written, if there are typos or grammatical errors, it will probably be rejected by the news website that you’re submitting your article to.
Get someone else to review your article. This could be a co-worker, a proofreading service , or a friend that you feel would have useful input into the story and how it is presented. Let them know what kind of feedback you are looking for and that you would appreciate their input. You can also request feedback from your teacher or professor if you are submitting the article for class.
Check over your article once more to make sure it is free of errors before publishing it.
General tips for writing an “A” grade newspaper article:
- Avoid flowery language, long sentences and big words…write as you would speak to someone
- Include quotes from eyewitnesses and people who are part of the story
- Proofread your article several times or have a friend check it for grammar or spelling mistakes
- Double check that you have spelled names correctly in your article. If possible, use a name in a quote to ensure you spell it right. If not, call the person and ask them to spell their name for you.
- Include a relevant picture of the people involved, not just the location (a picture of the car that was stolen or even of a person with a quote about how they feel.)
- Timelines are important in news writing – include them!
Create a news story based on this scenario: The town where you live has recently found a new source of water. People have been asking where the water came from, so you decided to investigate. You discovered that after years without rain or snow, the town’s reservoirs dried up and were not able to provide enough fresh water for people to drink. After a few dry wells, residents began digging their own wells until a nearby farmer hit water.
Do you need help writing a news article assignment? Click here to ask for news story assignment writing help by professional journalists and college paper writing help instructors.
What are your thoughts on how to write a news article for school assignment?
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Our best education articles of 2019, readers and editors pick the most interesting and insightful articles from the past year about teaching, learning, and the keys to well-being at school..
Looking for inspiration to start the new decade off on the right foot? Our most popular education articles of 2019 explore how children develop purpose, how we can best support our students’ mental health and social-emotional development, why we benefit from listening to each other’s stories, and more.
And…if you want to put the scientific findings from these articles into practice, check out our new website for educators, Greater Good in Education (GGIE), officially launching on February 20, 2020.
In response to our readers’ call for more practical resources for the classroom, GGIE features free research-based practices, lessons, and strategies for educators to foster their students’ and their own well-being, and for school leaders to develop positive school climates—all in the service of cultivating kinder, happier, and more equitable classrooms and schools.
If you’d like to take a deeper dive into the science behind social-emotional learning, mindfulness, and ethical development, join us for our annual Summer Institute for Educators . Applications are due February 15, 2019.
To whet your appetite, here are the 10 best education articles of 2019, based on a composite ranking of pageviews and editors’ picks.
What Are the Best Ways to Prevent Bullying in Schools? , by Diana Divecha: A new study identifies the most effective approaches to bullying prevention.
How to Help Young People Transition into Adulthood , by Betty Ray: Modern “rites of passage” can help teens prepare for an uncertain future.
Five Childhood Experiences That Lead to a More Purposeful Life , by Maryam Abdullah: Research suggests that our paths to finding purpose can be shaped by early childhood experiences.
How Colleges Today Are Supporting Students’ Mental Health , by Amy L. Eva: Colleges and universities are addressing well-being in students with new and innovative approaches.
How Understanding Your Brain Can Help You Learn , by Jill Suttie: A new book explains six keys to learning that can help anyone overcome barriers to success in school or in life.
Four Ways Schools Can Support the Whole Child , by Lisa Flook: Beyond just teaching academics, schools can foster students’ development in their relationships, identity, emotional skills, and overall well-being.
_260_180_s_c1.jpg "write a short article about your school")
Honoring the Teacher's Heart: Well-Being Practices for School Change
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How to Support Teens’ Social-Emotional Development , by Amy L. Eva: We need to appeal to teens’ need for status and respect for SEL to work in high schools.
How to Help Students with Learning Disabilities Focus on Their Strengths , by Rebecca Branstetter: We can empower students with learning disabilities with the language we use and the way we teach and guide them.
How to Become a Scientist of Your Own Emotions , by Jill Suttie: A Q&A with researcher Marc Brackett about how to cultivate emotional intelligence in ourselves and our kids.
What Happens When We Listen to Teachers’ Stories? by Amy L. Eva: Teachers of Oakland wants to change the conversation about education by humanizing teachers.
What Teens Are Actually Thankful For (video), by Jane Park: A first-grade teacher, a best friend, a parent—high schoolers share their gratitude letters with their recipients.
A Lesson in Thanks and Vulnerability (podcast): A junior high school teacher spent his life defying stereotypes about how men should express their emotions. Here he takes on a new challenge: getting his students to express gratitude.
About the Author
Amy L. Eva, Ph.D. , is the associate education director at the Greater Good Science Center. As an educational psychologist and teacher educator with over 25 years in classrooms, she currently writes, presents, and leads online courses focused on student and educator well-being, mindfulness, and courage. Her new book, Surviving Teacher Burnout: A Weekly Guide To Build Resilience, Deal with Emotional Exhaustion, and Stay Inspired in the Classroom, features 52 simple, low-lift strategies for enhancing educators’ social and emotional well-being.
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Journalism Center
Writing a how-to article for your school newspaper.
How-to articles are some of the easiest writing you can do—assuming you know what you are talking about. In this article, we will look at the most important elements of this type of article and how to prepare for and then write it for your school newspaper.
Know Your Stuff
A how-to article, by definition, casts you in the light of the expert—the one who knows what they are doing and how to do it right. So you really do need to know. Do whatever research you can to make sure you are comfortable with the process.
If you are going to write about How to Study, then you probably need to do some research on studying and memory retention techniques. Make sure what you write about is relevant to your audience.
Outline the Specific Steps
Once you have a topic and you know the subject well enough, outline the specific steps needed to be taken in order to accomplish the task. For example, on How to Study:
- Take Good Notes
- Transfer Notes into a Graphical Representation (visual things are remembered easier)
- Study in Spurts – 10 to 15 minutes (we remember first and last easiest)
- Switch Subjects Often (to eliminate mental fatigue)
- Teach It to Someone Else (you know what you teach)
- Review Often (little moments here and there)
If these are your steps, you now have your subheadings for your article.
Writing the Article
Begin with an introduction to the subject and why your method will help someone and then begin explaining each step that you outlined above. Write somewhere between two and five paragraphs to explain each point. If you think you need to write an entire article on just one point, then that is probably what you should do.
You don’t want each of your points to be so long that they become an entirely different matter and pull your reader away from the steps. Be concise and be thorough in how you write. Make every word count.
Give Examples
When opportunity presents itself, give examples of each of your steps. Sometimes, images work well, but certain exercises, personal experiences, or examples from other people are also nice additions.
People need to, as much as can be done, see your steps in action. So provide tips on implementing each step where applicable. For example, you can give tips on Step 5 of How to Study by saying something like this:
If you can sit where you want to in class, it might be best to sit next to the student who seems to be struggling the most in class. Invariably that person may ask your help. In teaching him or her how to do it, you’ve learned the material better than any cramming session ever could. So instead of sitting by your best friend and being distracting during class, sit next to someone who you can help teach.
Be Positive on the Outcome
Focus on the positive outcomes of following your steps, rather than the negative consequences of not doing so. You are trying to help someone do something, not lecture them because they don’t want to do it your way. So be positive in your writing. Not only will you find it rewarding when people are helped, but you will find that it strengthens your own character in that area.
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School Newspaper: How to Write an Amazing Article for It?
A school newspaper is one of the most important sources of information for students. It is a platform which the school administration and faculty members also use to reach the entire school community. As a student, you have an opportunity to contribute an article on this important communication medium which not only helps hone your writing skills but also gives you a sense of pride. The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards identifies school newspaper as a crucial tool for developing students’ talents.
If you have always dreamt of joining the media industry, a school newspaper offers the perfect springboard to test the waters. To get your article on the school newspaper, you have to learn the ropes and do a lot of research. Luckily, advancement in technology has made access to information easier whether you want to paper writer or find insightful material for your article.
In this article, you will learn the basics of a school newspaper and tips to help you write a high-quality article worth publishing in the next issue. Read on.
Discover Different Types of School Newspaper Writing
Before you rush to write an article for your school newspaper, you need to understand what type of content the editor needs. Just like in any other paper, the editor of your school newspaper will expect two main article types namely:
- News article: This is a type of material which covers the basics of current events in and out of the school environment. These articles answer the questions; who, what, where, how, and when? If you have a burning interest in happenings around you, it is easy to come up with a news article covering essential and relevant news for the school community.
- Feature article: This is a longer article with a more in-depth look at issues affecting the school community. In such an article, the writer tackles a major issue from multiple angles to satisfy the reader’s yearning for knowledge. With feature articles, you have more creative leeway to captivate the interest of your readers.
Understand the Structure of a Newspaper Article
It is important to learn more about the acceptable structure of newspaper articles the editor expects. Now that you have plans to join the media industry, the skills you learn at this point will help you later in your journalism career. Some of the most crucial aspects to note about a newspaper article structure include:
- The Inverted Triangle of Newspaper Writing
A school newspaper article takes the visual form of an inverted triangle with the crucial information coming on top and the least important coming towards the end. This is important to remember because newspaper readers will only look at the important ideas at the top and look at the closing before turning the pages. If you want to captivate readers with your first newspaper article, make sure you add the crucial information at the top paragraph and the least important towards the bottom.
- The Basic Story Outline
Before you write a newspaper article, take time to understand the structure or outline expected by the editor. All newspaper articles will always have the following major sections:
- Headline: Also called the “Head,” this is a short, attention-grabbing, powerful, incisive and insightful statement which summarizes your article. It appears at the top of your article and it has to be pithy and relevant to attract readers to your article.
- Deck: This is a blurb containing one or two sentences and summarizes what an article entails. It falls below the headline of your article.
- Byline: This is a caption of the writer’s name.
- Lead sentence (lede/lead): This is the first sentence meant to grab and captivate your readers.
- Lead paragraph: In the inverted triangle form, the section at the beginning is wider because it carries a lot of important information. This is the lead paragraph and it gives the most critical information about the story. In a news article, the lead paragraph answers the questions who, what, when, where, and why as quickly as possible.
- Body paragraphs: These paragraphs contain more details about the topic.
- Conclusion: You should find a memorable way to close your article and leave a lasting impression on your readers. You can add a quote to sum things up.
Look for Samples From Your School Newspaper
It is important to look at what other writers have done for your school newspaper before submitting your work. This will not only guide you on the quality of work required but also the structure, tone used among other things. Look for regularly featured writers and note how they formulate their ideas. It is also important to find out about the school newspaper publishing guidelines to guarantee your article ends in one of the pages.
Brainstorm for Article Ideas
Use writing prompts, talk to your family and friends and look at current news events to get ideas for your story. Remember that your account must captivate and interest the reader and you should thus look for the best article ideas. You can look for current news events and relate them to the school environment. The idea is not to re-invent the wheel but rather to use what is available for you to create an exciting story.
Some of the best story ideas you can find will come from:
- Events on campus: Whether there is a new professor or changes in administration, you can always come up with a story about events on campus.
- Interviews and profiles: Students have a lot of interest in public figures and if you can get an interview with one of these at school or outside, you have a potential story.
- Editorial and Opinions Columns: If you have something you would like to get off your chest, it is possible to send an article to the school newspaper editor.
- Club or organizations’ news: Anything happening within school clubs and organizations deserves attention from reporters.
- National news: If there are heated campaigns nationally or in your state, the school community will have more than a passing interest.
- Sporting events: Sports always feature in newspapers and if you love sports, you will always have good content for your school newspaper.
vii. Reviews of the latest movies, plays, video games or books: Whether you are a book lover, movie buff or a video game enthusiast, you can convert your hobby into interesting newspaper content. Your readers will always look forward to your next article.
viii. Trending fashion styles, music and other things that can interest your audience.
In the case of interviews, make sure you identify your subject early enough, request for an interview prepare interview questions early and find necessary interview tools.
Pitch Your Article Idea
You must convince the school newspaper editor about the relevance of your article. With so many students clamoring to write for the newspaper, the editor has to select the best articles carefully. Your pitch letter must be as engaging as your article. Break down your article and show its relevance instead of hyping it. You have to show that your article is worthwhile and should appear in the school newspaper.
Before submitting your pitch letter and the article, have someone look at the two texts. You can hire an editor from thesisrush.com to ensure your work meets the highest standards.
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- How to write a school magazine article
IGCSE ESL Exercise 6 How to write a school magazine article helps you to write this text style with the appropriate content and language to gain a high mark in this part of the exam .
This video shows you how to write an article for Exercise 6 of IGCSE ESL extended paper. The task is to write an article for a school magazine article about a snack machine.
School Magazine Article
- Exercise 1 & 2 (Extended)
- Exercise 3 & 4 (Extended)
- Exercise 5 & 6 (Extended)
- Listening Questions 1-5
- Listening Exercise 3 & 4
- Listening 5 (Extended)
- Videos (Extended)
- Speaking Test
- Exercise 1 Extended Video introduction
- Exercise 1 Keeping Bees in the City
- Exercise 1 Living for 200 years
- Exercise 1 Walking to the North Pole
- Exercise 2 Cheating in Exams
- Exercise 2 Different Collectors
- Exercise 2 Different Shops
- Exercise 2 Different Summer Camps
- Exercise 2 Different Writers
- Exercise 2 Extended Video introduction
- Exercise 2 Pizza Companies
Exercise 3 - Make brief notes related to a piece of text.
- Exercise 3 Being Bilingual
- Exercise 3 Extended Video introduction
- Exercise 3 Finding time to do things
- Exercise 3 Frozen Caveman
- Exercise 3 Kite Surfing
- Exercise 3 Life in 2069
- Exercise 3 World’s Sporting Champions
- Exercise 3 Young Mountaineer
- Exercise 4 Allergies
- Exercise 4 Citizen Scientists
- Exercise 4 Cooking
- Exercise 4 Family Meal Time
- Exercise 4 Medical Gadgets
- Exercise 4 Reducing Noise Pollution
- Exercise 4 Shipwrecked
- Exercise 4 Travel Writing
- Video Gaming in the Olympic Games
Exercise 5 - Write an informal email.
- Bonfire Night
- Exercise 5 Birthday Party
- Exercise 5 Cousin Visiting (Description)
- Exercise 5 Favourite Film
- Exercise 5 Going for an Interview (Advice)
- Exercise 5 Going on Holiday
- Exercise 5 Interesting Meeting
- Exercise 5 New Attraction
- Exercise 5 Restaurant Visit (Narrative)
- Exercise 5 Returning Home
Exercise 6 - Write a report, review or article.
- Animal Sanctuary
- Becoming Vegetarian Article
- Ed Sheeran Concert Review
- Exam Advice Article
- Exercise 6 Career’s Talk Report
- Exercise 6 Dangerous Shopping Book Review
- Exercise 6 Eating Out in Berlin Travel Report
- Exercise 6 Important Developments Article
- Exercise 6 Living in Different Places
- Exercise 6 Recycling Centre Report
- Exercise 6 Subject Choices Article
- Exercise 6 Thai Restaurant Review
- Mission Impossible – Fallout Review
- Online Gaming Article
- Smartphone Review
- Snack Machine Article
- Sports Lessons Article
- Work Experience Day Report
- Working in the Summer Holidays Report
- Questions 1-4 Test 1
- Questions 1-4 Test 2
- Questions 1-4 Test 3
Exercise 2 - (Question 5) Gap-filled exercises
- Ancient Structures
- Halloween Disco
- Portable Fridge
Exercise 3 - Matching
- City or Countryside
- Writing a Blog
Exercise 4 - Multiple Choice
- International Space Station
Exercise 5 - Gap Fill Part A
- Future of Shipping
- Photographing endangered species
- Seashells Part A
Exercise 5 - Gap Fill Part B
- Seashells Part B
- Ships with No Crew
- Taking photos
Here are videos to help you with the reading and wrting sections.
- Exercise 4 How to write a Summary (Extended)
- Exercise 5 How to write an Informal Advice Email
- Exercise 5 How to write an Informal Descriptive Email
- Exercise 5 How to write an Informal Narrative Email
- Exercise 6 Becoming Vegetarian
- Exercise 6 How to write a Film Review
- Exercise 6 How to write a report
- Exercise 6 How to write a review
- Exercise 6 How to write an Event Report
- Report Writing with Subheadings
Speaking Test Examples:
- Changes in the weather
- Following Trends
- Crossword Puzzles
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Education and Learning Puzzles Film Puzzles Idioms Crossword Puzzle Natural World Puzzles Seas and Oceans Puzzles Shopping Puzzles Sport and Fitness Puzzles Travel Puzzles
Education and Learning Puzzles Film Puzzles Natural World Puzzles Shopping Puzzles Sport and Fitness Puzzles Travel Puzzles Work Puzzles
- What makes a good life?
- Try something new for 30 days
- Mermaiding Listening Exercise
- London Travel Guide
- Working for the BBC Listening Exercise
- Makeup Artist Listening Exercise
- BBC Controller Listening Exercise
- Riding a Motorbike Listening Exercise
- Great Ship Adventure Listening Exercise
- Prepositions before Verbs
- Prepositions before Nouns
- Adjective Suffixes
- Education and Learning Exercises
- Geography Exercises
- Work Exercises
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Commentary: We must become better writers in an age of ChatGPT
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Using generative AI tools to string sentences together, whether for school or work, would be silencing your own voice, says Edson C Tandoc Jr of NTU Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information.
Edson C Tandoc Jr
SINGAPORE: Last semester, I taught a writing class at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information. The module included peer review sessions, where students read anonymised copies of their classmates’ writing assignments and gave comments.
For one workshop, I secretly included a feature article that no one in the class had written. Upon reading it, many students said the writing was decent, the flow was logical, and the copy was free of grammatical errors.
But one said that it was too dry. Another said she wished the writing was more personal. Someone said that it “didn’t have a soul”.
It was an article written by ChatGPT , a generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot.
Hitting 100 million monthly active users only two months after it was launched, ChatGPT is considered one of the fastest growing online platforms in history . The chatbot can be prompted to generate original texts in various formats, such as poems, essays, or even news and feature articles.
Like other language models, the chatbot can generate coherent and grammatically correct sentences in only a matter of seconds. It can also be prompted to write in a particular style, even that of a particular author.
But it also raises a lot of questions. For me, one concern is its impact on our understanding of original writing . If I had used ChatGPT to generate this commentary and prompted it to write using my style, would that count as my own writing?
A HELPFUL, TIME-SAVING TOOL FOR WRITERS
In February, the Centre for Information Integrity and the Internet (IN-cube) at Nanyang Technological University conducted an online survey and found that of 779 adult participants, about 46 per cent said they had used ChatGPT at least once in the past month, and nearly 15 per cent had used it more than five times.
Younger participants used it more often. Among the Gen Z respondents (21-25 years old), about 68 per cent had used it. Compare that with 52 per cent of millennials (26-41), 34 per cent of Gen Xers (42-57), and only 7 per cent of boomers (58-76).
Most of those who had used the chatbot had positive attitudes toward it, with about 75 per cent agreeing that ChatGPT was “helpful” and about 70 per cent agreeing that it saved time.
Indeed, ChatGPT can churn out writing at a fraction of regular human speed. The assignment where I snuck in a ChatGPT-generated article required my students to visit Fort Siloso in Sentosa and write about their experience.
While my students had one week to visit Fort Siloso and pen an 800-word article about it, ChatGPT did so in less than three minutes.
Commentary: Want ChatGPT to do your homework? Learn how to use it first
Commentary: I am a teacher and I let my students use ChatGPT
Others have argued that AI-powered writing tools can help users in several ways. They can check grammar and tackle writer’s block by generating an outline for an article. Outsourcing these tasks to AI allows writers to focus on the substance and content of their arguments or stories.
QUESTIONS OF HONESTY AND ACCOUNTABILITY
In addition to the Fort Siloso article that my students critiqued as impersonal, I also asked ChatGPT to write another version using a first-person perspective. It was similarly logical and decently written, but more engaging.
However, the article it generated was dishonest. In one paragraph, it wrote: “Upon entering the fort, I was greeted by a knowledgeable guide who gave me a brief overview of the fort's history.” How can an AI programme write about a first-hand experience it never had, describing sights it never saw?
A few of my students also pointed out factual mistakes. Indeed, when my colleagues tested ChatGPT by asking it to write short bios of faculty members, many details included were wrong.
When I prompted it to write a literature review and to include a reference list, it listed references that I could not find, and cited articles for information not discussed in them.
If I had used ChatGPT to generate this commentary and it included factual errors, who should be held accountable for any mistakes?
Bylines are not just about acknowledging the efforts and unique voices of authors - they are also about accountability. They identify the writer responsible for what is communicated in the article.
Commentary: ‘How do I prove my innocence?’ Casting students as would-be cheaters eager to exploit AI tools is disheartening
Commentary: Enough gushing about AI, we need to pause and think about its dangers
The value of original writing.
The popularity of ChatGPT and other AI chatbots isn’t surprising in a period of information overload . They can help us synthesise, organise and simplify data points into digestible and meaningful chunks.
However, ChatGPT presents a challenge for someone like me, who teaches a writing class where many assignments are done out of class. Tools that detect AI-written articles are available, though still in their infancy. The bigger challenge is getting my students to value originality and creativity , so that they choose to hone their writing skills and not take shortcuts.
Plagiarism has been around even before the rise of generative AI. In recent years, our faculty have come across websites offering to write essays or dissertations for a fee. But when we take these shortcuts to generate articles instead of write our own work, we are ultimately short-changing ourselves.
I encourage students to find their own voice and discover their own style. In the process of doing so, they will feel frustrated, as distinguishing ourselves from other writers is not easy.
But doing so has never been this important, at a time when almost everyone’s voice can be heard or read online, and when almost everything is templatised. Originality is what will help our writing stand out from all the noise.
HOW MUCH WILL WE ALLOW CHATGPT TO CHANGE US?
Listen – daily cuts: how can students and educators embrace chatgpt in the classroom.
Generative AI may produce articles with perfect grammar, but it is through struggles, challenges and imperfections that writers learn to be better.
Students may not produce the best copy the first few times, and that’s fine. They can use ChatGPT to help them proofread sentences they’ve written, learning from the errors it may flag or correct. They can even use it for comparison, like what we’ve done in our workshops, to learn what makes for a good, compelling writing.
But relying on generative AI alone to string sentences together - whether for a university writing assignment, a freelance gig or a PR campaign later on in professional life - deprives us of opportunities to learn and improve. It silences our own voices.
The technology is still evolving and will continue to improve. It is important that we continue to reflect on the extent to which we will allow these tools to change us.
Edson C Tandoc Jr is an Associate Professor and Associate Chair at the NTU Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information and the Director of the Centre for Information Integrity and the Internet (IN-cube).
Commentary: Multiple red flags are not yet slowing the generative AI train
Commentary: We pitted ChatGPT against tools for detecting AI-written text, and the results are troubling
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Opinion In a deep red Florida county, a student-teacher revolt shames the right
By now, it’s obvious that the reactionary culture warriors who want to reshape American education are inspiring a serious liberal counter-mobilization in response. Remarkably, this backlash to the backlash is gaining momentum in some of the reddest parts of the country.
A raucous school board meeting in Hernando County, Fla., on Tuesday night captured what’s striking about this new phenomenon. The scene featured teachers pointedly declaring that right-wing attacks are driving them to quit, even as parents and students forcefully stood up on their behalf, demanding a halt to the hysteria.
“I have never seen such fear from my colleagues as I have seen in the last two months,” social studies teacher Victoria Hunt told the board.
The whole affair really put the culture-war-mongers to shame. Not that they’ll see it that way; as the meeting also showed, scenes like this — with maximum rage, fear, tension and suspicion surging between parents and educators — are precisely the outcome they want.
This county, north of Tampa, voted for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2022 by a 41-point margin . It’s where fifth-grade teacher Jenna Barbee recently enraged local enforcers of right-wing orthodoxy by showing her class “Strange World,” a Disney movie with an openly gay character. The Florida Department of Education is investigating whether she violated DeSantis’s “don’t say gay” law restricting classroom discussion of sex and gender.
Barbee is resigning, but she’s hardly the only one. At Tuesday’s meeting, local teacher Daniel Scott gave a moving speech, declaring that the climate of rage is driving him out of the profession.
“I don’t feel that I can adequately provide a safe environment for my students anymore,” Scott said, denouncing the “draconian working conditions that are causing many such as myself to abandon this honored career.”
Meanwhile, Alyssa Marano, a math teacher who has resigned, rejected the oft-heard charge of LGBTQ indoctrination of students. “No one is teaching your kids to be gay,” she told the room. “Sometimes, they just are gay. I have math to teach. I literally don’t have time to teach your kids to be gay.”
Nearly 50 teachers are reportedly planning to resign in this school district. Lisa Masserio, president of the teachers union in Hernando County, says state laws and directives restricting educators are a key reason. She told us: “There is increased pressure and scrutiny on an already difficult job.”
At the meeting, right-wing parents and a minority of the school board amplified the usual attacks: Pornography in classrooms, indoctrination, wokeness. Watching them, it was impossible to avoid the sense that they were relishing every second of the tumult they’ve unleashed.
At the meeting, Shannon Rodriguez — a favorite of the right wing Moms for Liberty that led the attack on the Disney movie episode — kept robotically repeating phrases like “woke ideologies” and “woke agenda,” not even slightly disturbed by any sense of obligation to define their meaning. She proudly brandished her solidarity with boycotts of Bud Light and Disney as a badge of anti-woke heroism. Another conservative parent practically shouted, “You have awakened the entire alpha male blood of this country!”
But the real story of the night was the response. Again and again, parents and students forcefully defended teachers. They cast the right’s attacks, the censoring of educators and the removal of books as the real threats to education.
“War on woke?” one student said pointedly. “More like war on your children’s future.”
“It’s me and my fellow students who are feeling the effects of this,” said a second student. A third said the removal of books from classrooms is what’s really “indoctrinating students.”
Things like this are happening all over. As Sarah Jones of New York magazine reports, liberal parents in states as far-flung as New York, North Carolina and Montana are organizing local groups, pressuring school boards and running for office to challenge the right’s education takeover.
Democratic politicians are stepping up. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker will soon sign a bill that requires schools and libraries to adopt a prohibition on book removals for political reasons to qualify for state funding.
We have also learned that nine Democratic governors representing nearly 9 million students have sent a letter to leading textbook companies decrying “the negative impact that censorship and book-banning has on this nation’s students.” The letter indicates that the governors are watching closely to see if attacks on the companies by right-wing governors — such as DeSantis — are producing books that are “inappropriately censored.”
Phil Murphy, governor of New Jersey and the head of the Democratic Governors Association, says these governors will be modeling an alternative to right-wing censorship going forward.
“There’s a broad lane available for Democratic governors to reclaim the mantle of core American values — freedom, patriotism, rights,” Murphy told us. Murphy recently responded to DeSantis’s restrictions on an Advanced Placement course on African American studies by expanding the number of such classes in his state.
Just as a car wreck commands attention, the ugliness of right-wing culture-warring often transfixes the news media. But another story is beckoning: Ordinary parents everywhere and their elected representatives are responding, and declaring that they’ve had enough.
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