Welcome to my Classroom as a Newroom

Welcome to the newsroom! In my classroom, students will become reporters as they learn how to grapple with literature while gaining experience communicating those revelations to diverse audiences. In my class, students will sign up to be a part of different ‘beats’ each week where they will take on different genres of writing from narrative, journalistic, persuasive, academic or poetry. Within these beats, students will choose what they would like to write about and will spend almost half of their class time every day working on perfecting their pieces. At the end of the week, students will have the opportunity to publish their work to the school-wide news site.

In case our news site is new to you, we recently launched this website for students as an outlet for them to connect to the surrounding community through reporting on issues and events, and reading about those their peers have researched, that are happening right in their backyards. Each English Language Arts classroom contributes pieces that fit the traditional newspaper breakdowns such as Current Events, Essays, Opinions, Sports, Education, Technology, Science, Arts, and Economy. Though, what makes our site so special, is that the topics of each piece appearing on our site are uniquely chosen by the students who write them. Giving students autonomy, community and experience is at the heart of this ongoing, school-wide project.

In addition to reporting on current happenings, students will also submit works about the literature that they read in class. There is no better way to build strong writers than by inspiring voracious readers. So, each class period that students spend in my room, they will be reading books that they have chosen. We want to encourage students to read and that begins by retaining their interest at the stage of learning they are in currently. Students will have a wide variety of texts to choose from, but they will also consistently be pushed to read works that expand their understanding of themselves and the world around them.

Below, please find my answers to some questions that are no doubt in your mind:

1. How will this help my student foster a lifelong love of writing and reading beyond this classroom?

• My plan for a communications based classroom will lead students to a greater love of reading and writing because they will become active participants in the conversation. Being a part of a ‘newsroom’ will allow students to bring their own sets of interests and knowledge of their community into the work they are doing in class. Making reading and writing an extension of their daily lives is my goal with this classroom structure, but at the same time I am hoping to prepare students for a world that needs good communicators who understand how interconnected we truly are. Regardless of what field students enter into after leaving high school, they will be expected more than ever to make their work translate across diverse audiences. Students will be encouraged to learn that their backgrounds and their interests are needed and valuable, and they will also know that learning how to write well is a tool they can use way past the walls of my classroom.

2. My child does not enjoy how disconnected classrooms can feel from work they see taking place in the real world. How is your newsroom set up any different from another ‘role’ students are asked to play?

• Based on what I hear from my peers who are currently teachers, one of the biggest things students crave is an understanding of how things they learn in class may be applied to skills needed in the real world. Framing our classroom around mass communication could help do just that. No matter what students are writing about, they will be able to write it in a way that connects with others and prioritizes joining into broader conversations. Additionally, the newsroom is a real-life experience. We will publish students’ work to a real website that is really accessible to the community outside their classrooms. However, it is also a priority of mine to provide students in my class with opportunities to expand their horizons through writing competitions, social action initiatives, and I am more than happy to help them tackle any other real-world application of writing that they would like to incorporate into their daily work.

3. How will my child actually grow their reading and writing skills?

• Whether they are working alone or are conversing on a project for their ‘beat,’ students will be immersed in the projects they are researching and creating. Students will be given a lot of autonomy when it comes to writing and reading in my class, so they will need to spend as much time as possible preparing work that is meaningful and relevant to their growth. I firmly believe that the best way to become better at writing and reading is to do just that: write and read. This classroom will spend a vast majority of its time working on original writing projects and self-chosen reading assignments. I trust that my students know or can find where their interests lie in these subjects, and I know that individual taste is important to nurture in order to keep students’ interest and curiosity.

4. Will my students be expected to read books that they are not ready for? Will those texts be required for the class?

• My course will be able to adapt to the needs of students because they will be in charge of choosing literature, novels and writing topics that they are interested in and can connect to. The majority of my class is based around the need for students to write and read consistently. So, while each child’s job may look very similar, the actual content they will be diving into will differ and offer flexibility for each child. I want my class to meet students where they are, but to hold them to their highest standard of excellence regardless of where they are academically.

• Though, that being said, we will do plenty of reading as a group -- we just may not spend an entire novel doing so. Reading short stories and poems as a group in class will help me to demonstrate best writing practices to your children. I will use these texts in order to give students a working example of topics such as tone, grammar conventions, repetition, point of view, persuasive appeals, etc. These readings will let students see the point I am making over a short period, so that when they are away reading their own books, they will be able to recognize these same tools over a larger body of text.

5. With all of the time my child will spend doing work on their own, how will you know what they need in order to give effective feedback?

• As the Editor-In-Chief, I will work with students as a group and individually to ensure everyone is growing and hitting important mile-markers. I think taking on the role of EIC will remind students that while they are free to write whatever they would like, they still have a figure that is there to guide them, offer them help where they need it and that is expecting their best work. As students are working on their individual projects, I will come around the classroom to have short and frequent conversations with them about the work that they are doing, where they are needing help, what they would like suggestions on, how their book is coming along, what are they learning, what connections to in-class lessons they can make, and any other aide that they might need at that point in time. Because this model of teaching enables me to be “hands-off” on what students read and write, it gives me much more room to know what my students are working toward and where they are in relation to that goal. In this way, I can tailor my lessons and advice that I give them to their individual needs.

6. How does your classroom stay with the standards?

• Structuring the classroom as a newsroom is incredible because it focuses on end-products, leaving more space to learn and incorporate the standards as we go along. I will only be grading summative assessments, which means that students will have greater opportunities to show what they truly know through the major projects they take on. Our standards offer a reasonable set of overlapping goals, and I plan to use them in order to be the foundation of my lessons and rubrics for students. Additionally, I feel like my class design will hold more credibility with my peers and with parents because it is so linked to the standards.

7. How will you teach grammar and spelling in the context of real writing?

• The best way to learn grammar is by reading it, listening to it and then mimicking it. Because creating media packages will be on display for real audiences, students will need to understand how to best communicate their ideas and grammar is part of that. I want my students to see grammar as a stepping stone towards success and not a roadblock they have to somehow overcome. Using grammar in practice is the only way I ever really learned grammar in my highschool career, so I think beginning with that approach will help students get to the heart of writing faster. In addition, I want my students to be able to envision their work. What does this mean? All the best writers can make their audiences feel like they are in a movie because the words feel so visceral and real to them. This is my goal for my students. We will approach grammar as a set of tools to help add more details to the painting and will take each new technique in the context of real work.

8. Are other teachers part of this class design too?

• I would love for other teachers to join in! We could create an entire network of newsrooms and dive into how different organizations communicate with each other and how stories are shared, built upon and evolve the more people read them. Though, if other teachers are not as interested in joining my news network, I think they should at least let me try this out for several reasons. First off, self-directed learning is at the heart of my classroom design. As we’ve learned in class there are a lot of studies that prove the effectiveness of adding autonomy into your courses, and going further, my idea for the newsroom addresses specific assets that students, colleges and employers alike want - communication skills for the modern age. Regardless of profession, understanding how to tell a good story is crucial. Ability to take responsibility for work products, independence in choosing research topics, and confidence in asking questions, listening intently, and summarizing in audible and written manners are just some of the additional benefits of learning in the environment of a newsroom.

I am so lucky to have the opportunity to work with you and your child as they prepare to enter “the real world!” With this end goal in mind, I hope you will find that each of my expectations from students guide them toward a greater understanding and finding a deeper joy in the things they write and read.

Love,

Ms. Saxton