At Fair Grove High School, Newspaper is a student-run class and club that publishes articles for the school and community to read.
Newspaper Class is sponsored by Joseph Florez, also the English I and Modern Novels teacher, who has been at Fair Grove for 13 years.
“I love teaching the Newspaper class because it is a group of kids who want to be there. … it’s normally full of kids who were very successful in English I and chose to sign up for another class that requires a combination of teamwork, communication, writing, and project based learning,” stated Florez.
Below Florez are four editors that run the class. Savannah Ipock (12), Evyn Jones (12), Brandon Kandlbinder (12), and Samantha Saylor (12). The editors grade, edit, and upload the articles, with occasionally also writing articles themselves, as well as manage the ‘assigning day’ where all of the writers in the class are assigned their articles.
Along with four editors, there are 22 writers in the class who write the majority of the articles that are published.
Keith Nolan (10), a first year writer and newspaper student stated, “I love the ability to be able to report on not only community members but also students. Being able to recognize their achievements not only whether it be academics or sports, or what they do in the community and how they serve each other.”
A typical day for Nolan in Newspaper Class includes arriving to class, getting settled and saying hello to his friends in the process, then sitting down with his Chromebook to check his email and see if he has any responses with information for his article, and reading them if so. After receiving emails, he compiles the information and puts it into his actual article for it to then be edited and published.
After Nolan’s article has been finished, it gets passed along to either Jones or Kandlbinder, as with every article. It then gets reviewed and touched up by Florez. Lastly it is given to Ipock or Saylor, who uploads the article and photo to the newspaper site: Eagle’s Eye.
A typical Tuesday Newspaper Class for Jones starts off with editing articles and communicating with people who have late articles in order to ensure that they have the necessary resources to finish the article. After that, she continues grading articles and reaching out to various writers in the class when needed, and then passing the articles to the other editors to upload them when finished.
Jones shares a similar love for Newspaper Class at Fair Grove High School to Nolan, and said, “My favorite part of being in Newspaper Class is how fun and chill the class is, and also you get to learn a lot about Fair Grove through Newspaper Class like I learn so much stuff about what is going on in the school and in the community.”
All articles can be found and read at www.fairgrovenews.com, where articles are uploaded weekly by the Fair Grove High School Newspaper Class.
