Motivation Mojo

Get them to do it by letting them do it.

While it’s important to motivate journalism students with a fair and accountable grading system, it’s also true that motivation isn’t only about grading. There will always be those kids (and adults!) who say: “That’s good enough.” Or, “I’ll just take the C, no biggie.” How do you get those people to work just as hard as the self-motivated perfectionists?

Here’s one way: Let the students really, truly own the publication. Let them make the decisions (with gentle guidance). Let them solve the problems (with gentle guidance). Let them take the glory (when the going is good), and let them take the heat (when the going gets rough). In this type of setup, even the content-with-a-C student will not want to be the one to let his peers down. It’s one thing to let your teacher down – or even let yourself down – and it’s another issue entirely to fail your fellow staffers.

When a publication is run this way, a student who wants to procrastinate on a news story won’t want to make his friend the news editor look bad. And the news editor will care, because she won’t want her section to make the rest of the paper look bad. The result of this system is that everyone cares – and gets to feel very proud when there is success.

Do your best to remind the staff that editor positions mean something. Attend local, state or national scholastic press conventions to give students a bigger view of how many of their peers are involved in journalism. Throw an end-of-year awards banquet and make a big fuss. Give out plaques or other forms of recognition. Simple tools like these award status to the hard-working students. It’s their job; it’s their section; it’s their publication: they are accomplished!

As a teacher you may find it hard to step back and not just tell your students what to do. Just take a deep breath and let them go! Let them use the photo that you don’t prefer. Let them choose which story is more important and where it should go. Tell them what you think, nudge them the right way, but, in the end, let them decide. This way they know the newspaper or yearbook belongs to them. And they’ll do a good job because it reflects on them and their peers. The good students will love this freedom, and they’ll draw all of their good-student friends onto the staff right along with them. Those who goof off will wind up leaving on their own once they realize this is no place for lazy people – or, they’ll stay and stop goofing off!

You have to be content to know that the better you’re doing your job, the less your students will realize you’re doing anything at all. The most success will come when running the staff is not about you and the grade you give them but about the team and their goal as a group. So, give them guidance, give them praise, and then give them plenty of room – and watch how amazing they can be.

What a Grade Experience

Stop! Giving everyone an A is not the answer. Here’s how to quantify the unquantifiable.

Let’s face it. Grading students on a publication staff is a pain in the assessment. Writing, editing, photography, layout, graphics, advertising sales: who’s doing what when? How do you compare the person who wrote a super investigative piece on the fire alarm system with the person who created a super graphic of the baseball team’s record? It’s an intimidating process. Some teachers just give up and say: everyone on the staff gets an A. But by ditching true evaluation of work, you’re also ditching student motivation.

“Our yearbook staff is very small, and I’m the only one who does any work. No one seems to care, and it gets me and my adviser so mad!” This was a complaint I heard from a girl in middle school.

“What grades do the other kids get?” I asked her.

“Oh, everyone gets an A in yearbook,” she said.

I understood why. The teacher knows who’s not working, but how do you explain that to an angry parent in a conference? How do you show or prove that a bad grade in yearbook or newspaper class was warranted? The answer is: Make each student entirely accountable for demonstrating his or her work. It’s as easy as two forms that I use in my class.

Form 1: Weekly Self-Evaluation Log
At the end of each day, students fill in a journal-type entry describing in detail what they accomplished that day. Whether they worked before, during or after school, it all goes on the log. At the bottom of the page at the end of the week, they answer a series of yes-or-no questions that require self-reflection.

Samples:
Have I accomplished something this week?
Have I helped create a positive atmosphere?
Did I let socializing get in the way of working?

Create a set of questions that makes them think, and always emphasize that honesty is of utmost importance in all areas of class. Give them two points per day as long as they’ve used their time productively, and always write comments challenging statements that seem to be dishonest or tweaking the truth.

Form 2: End-of-Issue Point Sheet
After the issue is put to bed, it's time for the overall grade. All of the previously graded logs get stapled to this cover sheet that is a rubric of all things newspaper. Make a maximum point value for each category: writing, editing, photography, graphics, layout, ad sales, ad design, proofreading, distributing – anything that could ever possibly be done on a publication staff. This system will cause some students to wind up with, oh, a billion points. But, more importantly, the students who are lagging will see all that they have not done. They can see a concrete way to improve. But if they don’t improve, you can show their parents what is lacking. There’s nothing more effective than saying to a student with a low grade: Show me where you think you should have received points.

Birth of a Journalism Adviser

The Job Fairy just dropped a school publication in your lap, and your reaction is…Yikes? Hooray? Gulp? Huh?

Did you know that AP Style for advisor is adviser? Have you ever even heard of AP Style? If you are a publications teacher in a middle school or high school, it is very likely you answered no to both questions. It is also very likely that you are banging your head against the wall right now.

You probably did not embark on the job application process intending to be in charge of a school newspaper or yearbook. You innocently sent in your resume to a particular school or school district. You wanted to be an English teacher, or maybe a social studies teacher. Or, heck, maybe even a PE teacher.

On the top of my resume in the summer of 2002, I clearly wrote my job objective: English teacher. I got a call from a very desirable, newly built, suburban high school located 20 minutes from my house. I dressed as English-teachery as possible and arrived for my interview ready to quote Shakespeare at a moment’s notice.

“You know we’re interviewing you for the newspaper job, right?” the lady at the desk said to me when I greeted her.

“Noooo,” I said in a sing-songy, casual, I’m-not-the-least-bit-bummed tone. “But, okay.”

You see, I had been home raising my three children for the previous 11 years. My self-esteem and my skills were a bit rusty, and this was a plum school after all. I had been a school newspaper adviser for three years prior to my child-related sabbatical, so the eagle-eyed person in charge of hiring had seen the word newspaper on my resume.

They hired me to teach Journalism 1, Newspaper 2-4, and ninth grade English. Now what? The last time I taught journalism, we used a waxer and a t-square. I was now, like most newly hired teachers in this position, the reluctant adviser, and I am telling you this to let you know that you are not alone.

Sure, you may feel alone. That’s because no one else in your school does what you do or even understands what you do. Your administrators eye you with worried suspicion. Your fellow teachers shake their heads at you and acknowledge the fear they harbor about ever having to do your job. You probably don’t have any set curriculum, and any journalism textbook you may or may not have may or may not be ancient and completely useless. Then there’s that constant nagging feeling that there is knowledge you are supposed to have that you don’t – like what the heck AP Style is.

How in the world will you ever survive through the school year? The best way to know is to answer the following very important question: How stubborn are you? Being stubborn is a great trait in any teacher, especially one doing a particularly undesirable job – as in, “Gosh darn it! I will put out a fabulous school newspaper no matter what! I will recruit good students and/or mold the tough ones! I will make being on the newspaper staff the coolest, most admired of all positions! And I will do it while the other teachers around me run in fear! Ha!”

See, that’s the kind of stubborn I’m talking about. Think about it. And if you decide you’re the right one for this, then know that you have my admiration – and my support as well. I’ll try to do right by you in my future posts, so consider yourself on your way. Oh, and one little secret – being a publications adviser is actually the best job in the world.