Musings on Wednesday

Tuesday at the Institute was a pretty intense day.  First, we sat through a lesson from Steve about teaching basic writing skills.  Next came photography and Photoshop.  We wrapped up the day listening and frantically taking notes as Randy Lovely answered questions, then had two hours to meet our first writing deadline.

So by the time Wednesday morning came along, I think we were all ready for a slower paced day.

I've spent most of the classroom sessions so far trying to figure out how I can adapt the lessons to my own classroom, and although I really enjoyed Steve's critiques of our writing, I'm not sure if I would be able to accomplish the same thing in a class setting.  My students don't have the stamina to pay attention to the subtleties of discussing sample after sample, but that isn't to say that it wasn't an incredibly worthwhile experience for me.

The same can be said for the session on opinion writing, I think.  I enjoyed listening to Sarah Garrecht Gassen speak, particularly because she made me think about how I teach opinion writing and how I can improve the quality of the opinion writing in my publication.  I especially enjoyed how she mentioned that student journalists don't write opinion pieces well because they don't consider it "real" journalism.  I've always struggled with this, but I feel like Sarah gave us specific strategies for counteracting these opinions on our staffs.

I am grateful for the time to spend this afternoon conferencing with professional journalists and then working on our own stories.  The time helped me to narrow the focus of my story, but it also alleviated much of the stress that I've been feeling toward the story.  Now, I am feeling confident and I am looking forward to seeing what happens tomorrow, although the video aspect makes me a little nervous.

Julieanne McClain
Rutherford B. Hayes High School
Delaware Ohio