 |
The Flying Eagle-East
Intermediate’s Young Journalists
Kitty Davis, Principal
GCSD East School
For the last eight years, students in the Discovery class have
distributed a four to six page newspaper entitled, “The Flying Eagle”
at the end of each quarter. The young journalists have varied
from a third and fourth grade writing team to only fourth grade
contributions the last several years. The advisors for group,
Mrs. Thomas and Mrs. Baker, have found that the fourth grade language
arts curriculum readily lends itself to writing in-depth opinion pieces
and reporting facts.
Topics for the paper include district events, school wide events,
classroom happenings, opinion pieces, poems, teacher feature, jokes,
and written debates. The students look forward to covering sports
and possibly submitting comics in the second edition this school
year. Often the young journalists interview other classmates
within the school as well as their teachers. Occasionally,
students have the opportunity to interview district leaders.
In order to prepare for becoming journalists, the students read the
Landry News written by Andrew Clements. This story is about a
young girl, Cara Laundry, who moved to a new school. Cara created
a newspaper article regarding her teacher, Mr. Larson, which he viewed
as offensive and unfair. Cara begins to feel guilty that she was
so harsh with her judgment of the teacher and creates a second edition
to rectify the problem. Fourth grade journalist Jayden Hicks
explained the book’s purpose is to teach students that true journalism
is writing about the facts that exist.
When asked what he liked best about being a part of the newspaper,
Bryce Blumenstock explained, “We make a list of options/topics that we
can write about and we are allowed to volunteer to write on certain
subjects.” Ella McLear added, “Everyone has to write an
article.” Jayden Hicks concluded, “I like researching information
and making sure all the facts are correct in the article.” Mrs.
Evers, a third grade language arts instructor, remarked she enjoyed the
paper. She stated, “I love that the students are having fun while
practicing their writing skills as well as their interviewing
skills. It is exciting to see them write in a different format
and expand their knowledge of vocabulary.”
|
|
|
|
