Information to assist you in teaching journalism

Composition | Grading | Lesson Ideas

The Virginia Department of Education reports there are 289 public high schools and an additional 50 combined high and middle schools in the state of Virginia in the 1999-2000 school year. It is unknown how many of these schools have classes for journalism instruction.

According to VHSL, Virginia public school official reports indicate that 230 schools have a newspaper, 283 have a yearbook and 151 have a literary magazine.

We do know you either have a journalism class for English language arts or fine arts credit or elective credit. If not, you have an after-school activity and want some assistance in training those students.

At the heart of journalism education must be composition instruction. Students need to manipulate sentence structure, develop vocabulary, and understand audience and purpose. Students must distinguish the different genre, differentiate fact from opinion, understand the art of persuasion and apply organization. Research and interviewing techniques, fallacies of logic and reliability of sources are also important areas of consideration and instruction.

In the 1998-99 school year three teachers and a high school student created a ThinkQuest for Tomorrow’s Teachers Challenge educational Web site. Recipient of the platinum award in the content area category, “Only a Matter of Opinion?” provides instruction and lesson plans for editorials, commentary and columns, and editorial cartoons.

Grading may be one of an adviser's most difficult jobs.

One student seems to deserve an A because she has done two or three pieces of outstanding work.

Another student is there every day until the teacher leaves, doing anything and everything that needs to be done, often picking up work dropped by other staff members. Even though none of that work may be outstanding, the student may deserve an A simply because the paper would never make it to press without him.

A third student doesn't do work as good as that done by the first student and doesn't put in nearly as much time or effort as the second, but she is a pretty good writer and works reasonably hard. She argues that she deserves an A just as much as the other two.

What is the adviser to do when everyone on the staff, each with different strengths and weaknesses, is working on a different schedule and on different projects.

A GOOD GRADING SYSTEM
A good grading system must hold students accountable to standards clearly articulated and understood in advance. Because students are often pre-selected for their ability to do the job and there because they want to produce an outstanding publication, good grades may well go to most members of the staff. The standards are necessary to help the teacher/adviser distinguish between those students and the others who fall short.

One way to approach it is with a kind of independent study contract, shared with the student (and perhaps the parents) in advance, clearly laying out grading standards that are flexible enough to accommodate the variety of students and activities that go into publications.

I would argue that a good grading system requires three elements: quantity, quality and variety.

WHY QUANTITY?
Students need to accomplish a quantity of work comparable to that required in any other highly demanding academic course. In a strong program students may enjoy the work so much they don't even notice that they are working harder and longer than they do for any other course. Of course, that work may vary from writing and editing to photography and design or production and business management, and it may be accounted for in a few very large assignments or lots of little ones.

WHY QUALITY?
Work will vary in quality, but we must demand that students be the best that they can be and that they seek excellence in everything they do. Top grades should not go to consistent mediocrity but be reserved for outstanding achievement in any of many areas of journalistic accomplishment.

WHY VARIETY?
An outstanding editorial writer, photographer or advertising salesperson may give a huge lift to a staff, but if we permit a student to get by doing only one of the many jobs involved in producing a publication, we have seriously shortchanged that student in terms of a complete journalism education. One of the best reasons for a journalist to start on a small publication is that they will be doing a little of everything and have the opportunity to develop wide-ranging abilities.

How do we accomplish all this?

Many advisers have found that the key is in establishing a point system that assesses a value to everything that is done: reporting and writing stories or copy, based on length or complexity; taking, developing and printing photographs; selling and designing ads; or creating and producing layouts; and then including a point value for time spent doing the countless things that don't show up in a tangible product. Of course, that plus-point system has to be balanced with a minus-point or demerit system that penalizes students for failures such as late or missing work, substantive inaccuracies or other irresponsible behavior. Then it should be determined how many points a student should earn each issue, each deadline or each grading period in order to meet the quantity expectations for an A, B, or whatever.

Quality can be included using a couple of approaches. One approach is for the adviser, after each issue or deadline, to do a complete markup pointing out strengths and weaknesses and awarding one to four stars to any single piece of work based on quality beyond "acceptable" (presumably that which is unacceptable is not printed). A single star would award a 25 percent bonus in the base value of that piece of work, whatever it was, with four stars (given very rarely) awarding a 100 percent bonus. Such a system permits students to do fewer things well and still meet the quantity requirement. But a student should also be required to produce a specified number of starred pieces of work during a marking period in order to qualify for an A, thus ensuring that quantity alone is not enough to meet the standard.

Variety is a key component in getting a complete education in journalism, but the requirement must be flexible enough to permit students to gain real strength in those activities they do well and to ensure that the publication will benefit from the diverse skills of staff members. One system specifies that a student can earn unlimited points in an area of special expertise or interest, whether it is covering sports, taking photographs, creating computer designs or selling ads. However, to earn an A the student has to earn at least half the required points doing journalistic activities other than the one they most enjoy. Further, they have to earn at least five points per marking period in at least five of the seven activities specified on the grade sheet.

Because most journalism courses offer English credit, every member of the staff from editor-in-chief to bookkeeper must also work as a reporter, expected to write on a regular basis. And because the money required to publish affects everyone on the staff, every member of the staff might be required to at least make a reasonable attempt to sell advertising, with minimal points awarded for the effort and the most points reserved for those who are most successful.

By now it probably sounds like the grade book record keeping might be a full time job as the adviser tries to keep tabs on everything. But I only spent about 15 minutes per marking period on each student. Students were given a folder and record sheet with the requirement that it be updated each week as to how many points the student had earned doing what. They were required to provide in the folder copies of all work done that week to match the points claimed. To account for time, I initialed service sheets within 24 hours of the time the work was done to establish validity. Demerits I recorded immediately in the grade book, to prevent their being "lost," but with the provision that they could be appealed.

Assuming that the folder is kept up to date, a student, parent, administrator or adviser can determine at any time exactly what grade the student would earn if the grade were given then, exactly where the student falls short and what the student needs to do in the time remaining to meet grade requirements. Grading is simple - a matter of matching the evidence of work accomplished with the points claimed and entering it in the grade book at the end of the marking period.

There is no one perfect answer to the grading conundrum. There are simply too many publishing situations. Any point system has to be adapted to the unique situation. Some advisers have found the portfolio system most helpful, with the portfolio documenting the student's efforts, followed by a critical review by the student, a student editor and the adviser.

The key is in finding a system that is as objective as possible in a totally subjective environment so that the adviser can make valid and defensible distinctions between those who are doing outstanding work and those who are just getting by, if that. I would be happy to take questions or perhaps share the grade sheet used to support the system above.

— Bob Button
Bbutton@vhsl.org
804-977-8475

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