Final Paper – ASNE High School Journalism Institute, UT Austin, June 19- July 1, 2011
Casey Elsa
July 27, 2011
School Profile
Name:
Santa Rosa High School
School Location and Environment: Santa Rosa High School is located in Northern California,
just an hour north of San Francisco. We are known for our wineries, and lovely temperate
climate. We have a thriving agricultural community and many tech centric businesses. Our
community has been featured in a number of films. We have also welcomed some celebrities as
permanent residents. Our high school, Santa Rosa High School, is one of the oldest high schools
in the state. It was first established in the late 1800s and carries with it a rich history and pride.
We are a school that fills up each Friday with orange and black clad students. The devotion that
the students feel for this school is tangible. Our city is also home to several other high schools:
Maria Carillo High School, Montgomery High School, Piner High School, and Elsie Allen High
School. As we are the most centrally located high school, we have the highest population of
students. We typically are overenrolled each year. This is also due to the wide variety of
programs offered at Santa Rosa High School. We have the ArtQuest program on our campus
which operates as a school within a school. Students take classes in their artistic discipline for
all four years of their high school careers. They are also tracked through their core classes with
ArtQuest program teachers that incorporate the arts into the daily instruction. Beyond ArtQuest
we also have a thriving vocational training program that is offered to our special education
students. This program has been so successful that students in this program have become a
greater part of the SRHS community. Additionally, they have found jobs in the community
outside of high school due to their participation in this program. Just last year we received the
California Distinguished Schools award and the award for California Career and Technical
Education. Last year we had a significant number of students qualify as National Merit Scholars.
Our standardized test scores continually rise and, although the district has been faced with
program improvement status, we have never been a school that is in program improvement.
.
Grades:
9-12
Type:
Public high school
Enrollment: Approximately 2,000 students (including special education)
Graduation and College Stats: Of the 436 students that graduated last year, 142 received
scholarships. The total amount of all scholarships rewarded that year was $1,717,717 which is
more than double the amount handed out at Montgomery H.S. which came in second within our
district.
Percentage of minorities: Santa Rosa High School serves a population that is economically
middle class. Approximately 60% of the students are Caucasian and 27% are Hispanic. 31% of
our students come from socioeconomically disadvantaged households (according to our 20092010 SARC report).
Overview of the Journalism-Newspaper Program:
In February of 2005, the Santa Rosa High School newspaper, The Santa Rosan, was resurrected.
Prior to this resurrection, the newspaper was photocopied and distributed like a less than
respected handout. It was put together by students that were taking the class for English credit.
On the surface this sounds like a nice reward for the hard-working journalists, but as one student
in the class stated, “I am taking this class because I don’t like to read.” When nonreaders try to
write, it is never a pretty thing. Thus the class died. When I was approached by several willing
Honors English students to advise the newspaper “club,” I did not know what to expect. Years
later and many issues under our belts, we put out a respectable product. We transitioned into a
magazine style cover. Next we plan to update our online content so that we have a site that many
will want visit.
Who can enroll:
Anyone may enroll in journalism so long as they have earned a C or better Honors
English, or a B or better in Academic English. Anyone that does not meet these
requirements must get adviser approval for admission.
Class and class size:
Our class is offered once a day during fourth period. We have anywhere from 20-35
students in the class. Last year was an unusual year as we had 37 students. We have two
working computers that the editor-in-chief and the managing editor use to layout the
whole paper. The students are all responsible for the writing and editing of the copy. We
are funded solely by advertising with occasional grants from the SRHS Foundation for
field trips and equipment purchases.
Production and technology:
The Santa Rosan is created using Adobe InDesign CS2. We are hoping to upgrade to a
current version of this program this year. We also use Adobe Photoshop. All of our
photos are digital. We scan illustrations. Our printing is completed by the Marin Sun
which is a small community newspaper located in the next county over. The paper is
delivered to our school secretary’s house to be delivered to the site. We spend well over
$4,000 each year to print our paper.
Learning Environment and Issues:
Our school is a large albeit welcoming place. We are a diverse campus filled with many
students that transfer to our site by choice. Students come to our school because the
learning environment is much more all-inclusive and meets the needs of a diverse
population.
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Journalism is home to a wide variety of students. We have an even mix of students from
all grade levels. We do have a number of students that seem to just be here to kill time.
They are sometimes difficult to work with and we as a group need to find new ways to
motivate them. It is hoped that the environment that we foster at the beginning of the
year will further foster their enthusiasm for the class as the year progresses. We are also
losing our webmaster and will need to find new ways of getting our content online. For
the most part we just need to learn how to use WordPress.
Focus of Curriculum Units and Lesson Plans:
For the 2010-2011 school year, our journalism class will be working on developing a
cleaner style. We will work with a smaller number of fonts and layout styles so as to
perfect our techniques. Additionally, we will be focusing on our online media more than
we have in the past. We cannot have an online paper that is updated only once per month.
Our goal is to update content on a daily or almost daily basis. We will also work on
improving the student’s grasp of the First Amendment, student press law, and relevant
current events.
Class Format:
To help ease the paper load, we are going to try a new means of critiquing student
writing. We will have all students work on their documents using Google Docs. When
we critique the articles, all comments will be posted on the Google Docs comment field.
Using the new mobile lab, students will be able to work on their writing in class and
receive immediate feedback.
In addition to writing, we will be attempting to broaden the student’s knowledge of
current events. Many students do not immerse themselves in newspapers anymore and
thus do not know much about the world around them (except for entertainment media).
To that end, we will be having weekly current events assignments and discussions that
will also hopefully turn into article assignments at a later time.
We will also need to work on the basics. Students need to see good writing and learn
how to make their writing equal to it. During the beginning of the year we will have a
workshop with example student writing and exercises on interviewing and getting to the
meat of a story.
Assessment/Evaluation:
Student work is scored based on the student’s ability to meet his/her deadline with quality
work that conforms to the word counts and subject matter. Most written assignments are
worth 25 points. Editing sessions are worth 10 points as are discussion assignments.
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Lesson Plans
Unit I
Thematic Coverage and Current Events
In this unit we will look at ways that the whole class can produce pieces
that fall under a theme (i.e. a spread or in-depth issue). We will also look
at the way the local media and the national media cover certain issues
(anniversary of 9/11). Students will examine the media for various article
styles that will be shared out in class. They will also find ways to capture
telling quotations. They will work as a group to host a press conference.
They will find diverse sources for their assignments. The essential
questions are: what do we cover, how do we cover it, and who are our
sources?
Objectives:
Students will:
 Use Google forms to gather information on an assigned topic
 Develop interview questions that can be used in a press
conference
 Practice addressing the topic in news writing, feature writing,
and editorial writing
 Examine media coverage for style and “bias”
Activity 1 – Stealing from Ken Paulson: Appreciation of the First
Amendment
 Divide students into teams
 Have students participate in a group quiz on the First
Amendment
 Have students write a brief paragraph about a time that they
saw or heard about the First Amendment rights of someone
being violated.
 Have the students answer the following discussion question: Is
there ever a time when our First Amendment rights should be
compromised (i.e. security, etc.)?
Activity 2 – Examining the Media
 Show students two news articles on Barack Obama’s Nobel
Peace Prize nomination
 Have students look for evidence of bias in each news piece
 Have students rewrite the sentences containing bias to show
less bias
 Discuss the concept of “bias” using information taken from the
lecture by Robert Jensen.
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Have students locate two news articles from two different
papers that cover the same topic to bring in on the following
day.
Look for bias in the homework articles.
Discussion: How can these articles be reworked to make them
relevant to a student audience?
Have students write a small article on the topic of their
homework article with a student centric spin. Have students
email the articles to the class email address.
Activity 3 – Using Google Docs and Forms
 Using the mobile lab, have students create Google accounts to
use for the school year
 Students will log onto the class Google doc that should contain
all of the mini-articles that they submitted in Activity 2.
 Students will then choose any two articles from the document
and they will leave comments on them.
 Students will review the comments that they received
 In small groups, students will create a Google form that can be
used to glean information from the student body about either
the First Amendment or 9/11.
 They must then find a way to get this form out to as many of
our students as possible in a 24 hour period
 On the following day check the results of the poll and the
quality of the responses/forms to provide feedback.
Activity 4 – Press Conference
 Have students pair off with someone that they do not know
well.
 Give them one minute to interview their partner (Acton).
 Ask them if they have enough to write a story? Discuss the
ways that many in the past have conducted their interviews and
how a minute just isn’t usually enough.
 As individuals have students write down three questions that
they would like to ask their principal (or other official if the
need arises).
 Have students share out their best question of the three and
write them on the board.
 Discuss the need for brevity and the general structure of a press
conference.
 Discuss the possible stories that we might get out of the
conference and the goals of the conference.
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Later in the week have students show up with their list of
questions and materials for note taking. Host a brief press
conference where students can ask the source their questions.
Debrief following the conference to develop story plans.
Sources:
First Amendment Powerpoint, Ken Paulsen
Ethics Powerpoint, Dr. Robert Jensen
Exercise on Newswriting Powerpoint, Jeanne Acton
Unit II
Examining Our Diversity and our Bias
Each year students get stuck interviewing and looking to the same sources
for most of their articles. This unit will analyze our diversity of sources
and the bias that may exist within our paper. We will answer the essential
questions: Are we diverse in our coverage and in who we seek out as
sources, Do we display a bias and if so how should we address this issue?
Objectives:
Students will:
 List general topics of coverage and the potential sources that
they might “go to” for content
 Examine each issue from last year’s run of our paper for bias
and diversity
 Examine ledes
 What was covered overall, what was covered repeatedly
 Examine key articles for bias
 See sample work that “works”
Activity 1 –Brainstorming
 Students bring in two topics that would be worthy of coverage
in our paper (they are instructed to bring in topics that are
student/teen centric).
 Group students and ask them to pick the best three from each
group to put on the board.
 After the topics are listed, have the students come up with “go
to” sources for each topic
 Next, ask them who they would not go to for these topics and
discuss why they think these figures would not have something
to contribute to the story.
 Outside of class the students will select one of the topics and
they will get a quotation from one of the figures that was not a
“go to” source for that topic to bring back for discussion.
 Did this person have a story in his/her words?
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Activity 2 –How diverse is our coverage?
 Group activity:
In small groups examine the copy of The Santa Rosan that you
were assigned from last year’s circulation. Look through every
article for quoted sources. Compile a list of all quoted
individuals in the issue.
 Were any of the quoted individuals quoted in more than one
article in your issue? If so, how many times?
 Were the individuals quoted representative of our student
body? (i.e. how many were males, females, athletes,
minorities…etc.)
 Have students compare their quoted list with the other groups.
 How many of the students on your list have been repeatedly
quoted in other issues?
 How can we correct this problem? Discuss.
 Who are we not talking to and why?
 Next have the students look at the topics that were covered last
year.
 Have the students list all of the topics covered in a single issue.
 Rank each topic from 1(worst)-10(best) on how well they
think this topic spoke to our student body.
 Discuss which topics were at the bottom and top of their lists
and how we can improve.
Activity 3 – What Works?
 Show students sample articles with sample ledes that work and
some that don’t work
 Looking over the articles that did not work, discuss the ways
that students would change them to make them work
 Give students an article that is missing its lede and ask them to
supply one
 Discuss the various lede styles and have the students try to
write one of each
Sources:
Diversity, Dr. George Sylvie
Newswriting Powerpoint, Jeanne Acton
Ethics Powerpoint, Dr. Robert Jensen
Submitted by:
Casey Elsa
1508 Range Ave.
Santa Rosa, CA 95401
(707) 591-0404
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Santa Rosa High School
1235 Mendocino Ave.
Santa Rosa, CA 95401
(707) 535-4847
W – celsa@srcs.k12.ca.us
H – caseye@gmail.com
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