The School Newspaper: Ella’s Advice

Ella McWoof here. Ms. Cowoline invited me to come and talk to some of her students who are interested in making their own school newspaper.  I think that’s a great idea. I’m sure all the students of Kinzville Academy would love to have a paper to keep them up on all the happenings in their school.

Nibbles Hippo is going to make a great editor. I told her and her friends that the first thing they need to do is decide on a name. Hmmm… the Kinzville Times is already taken. How about KVA Today? Or the Kinzville Academy Post? Kinzville Academy Chronicle? Got any suggestions?

Once they have their name, they can decide on the sections that they want in every issue. Some ideas are:

-          News: this can cover current events at your school such as field trips, awards, elections and other notable happenings that don’t occur on a regular basis.

-           Sports: this section can cover the various teams and their scores and stats. You can also provide a schedule of upcoming practices and games.

-           Clubs: Perhaps your paper could choose a different club to highlight each issue.

-          Interview: each issue, your paper could interview a notable member of your community or a student or teacher who has made a difference to your school.

-          Trends: students could write about the latest fashions, popular music or movies that are hot right now.

-          An advice column: being Plumpy’s little sister, Nibbles should know all about that! Ask readers to send in problems they need help with.

-          Fun stuff: I’ll bet there are lots of great artists and imaginative ‘Kinz at school who could draw comics or make up fun puzzles for readers.

Put out a call for volunteers to help write for the paper. Once you have your team together, decide who will write each story and then set a deadline. Ask your writers to try and include photos or visuals with their stories. Once all your stories are in, it’s time to start editing. Make sure to double check all spelling and grammar and edit your stories for length.

Now it’s time to lay out your paper. There are lots of computer programs that offer templates you can use for this, or you can create your own. Remember, the news stories usually go at the front of a newspaper, features go in the middle and fun stuff appears at the end. You can even make up some fun advertisements – why not ask clubs and teams to submit their own ads promoting their team?

When your layout is complete, proof read it very carefully. When you’re sure you’re happy with it, print out a hard copy and then photocopy issues for distribution. Another option is making your paper a downloadable PDf rather than a hard copy so that you’re not creating waste.