Juli
Kendall's
2004-05
READING/WRITING
WORKSHOP JOURNAL
Entry #18
Our Newly Motivated Students Are Benchmarking
"It doesn't get any better than this!"
— Vanthenan, as we walked around school with two digital cameras and five students who were taking photos
Our adventures in Journalism go on and on. Now that we've added photography into the mix, it seems as if the kids just can't get enough of taking photos. They flip the memory cards and the rechargeable batteries in and out of the cameras as if they were playing video games. They are so comfortable with the technology and at ease with not just taking photos but also deleting the ones they don't want to keep. I'm in awe!
(For more about our adventures with photojournalism, see Journal #16.)
We've made six large collages from photos the students have taken so far and we're framing them to place in the hall by the office. We've designed an entire four-page edition of the school newspaper, Whittier Times, that's entirely devoted to photos they have taken with captions they have written. We spend lots of time taking photos, looking at our photos, and talking about how to make our photos better. But how does all this tie into kids learning to read and write and our goal of using Journalism to help kids improve? I'm coming to see that motivation is a big part of the picture. When kids are motivated to learn, whether it's a chance to get out of class and walk around taking pictures or listen to a guest speaker on photography, they go for broke. When we started our Journalism Club this year, we focused on kids who were not at grade level. Here's how I explained it in Journal #5:We picked 30 students to motivate, all of whom had not met the reading benchmark criteria for going to sixth grade. As of now, all but one student has met the criteria and 15 of the students are approaching grade level proficiency. That's just what we wanted to happen. But why is our plan working?
But I didn't want it to be for the "gifted" kids. I wanted it to motivate kids who are below grade level to meet, and even exceed, grade level expectations. I wanted to infuse reading and writing into the Journalism Club to act as a springboard for improving students' achievement. Whoa!
Back to the "M" word — motivation. Journalism has been the catalyst for improving students' achievement in part because it has been so motivating for them. They have seen it not as a stigma but as a privilege to come and work with the principal and myself for 45 minutes every Monday afternoon. They have seen it as an honor.
They love the Journalist nametags, notebooks, and folders that they have been given. They like working in small groups and with partners. They love using Microsoft Word to write up their articles. They enjoy the conversations and the celebrations when we publish a newspaper.
They also love the responsibility they have been given for getting out the news about all the good things that are happening at our school. They even ask to take home the newspapers we receive as a part of the Newspapers in School program in our city. Each and everything we have tried has been greeted with great enthusiasm.
It is a humbling experience to see how important the Journalism Club is to them. And so, I guess Vanthenan is right — it just doesn't get any better than this!
Resources page for our Reading/Writing Project
