Our mission is to close the achievement gap - To provide the future journalism adviser with a basic understanding of how to implement a journalism program in his/her own school, SVP will send the appointed teacher to a 2 week professional development program
- Between Year 1 and Year 2 of the program, each journalism adviser will apply to attend a Summer Institute Program to enhance the adviser's overall ability to teach writing and implement writing lessons.
- Each school is matched with an experienced journalism adviser to mentor and prepare the new journalism teacher
- The first year, the journalism teacher, with the help of the adviser, will focus on the 4 major elements of a journalism program: Overview and Goals, Politics and Policy, Budget and Design, and the Changing Face of Media (see Exhibit 1)
- The second year of the program will expand to include 20 modules that can be incorporated into the English Language Arts curriculum.
- Each school will be assigned a professional journalist from SVP’s Advisory Board to serve as a mentor and resource to students in the day-to-day operations of running a newspaper.
- The mentor will visit the school once a month for 1-3 hours to help the students with any issues that arise, to review student writing, and to offer real-life anecdotes from the field. The mentor will also use the time to assess any quality control issues.
- Students will be able to enroll in the journalism elective as a member of the student newspaper staff
- The core teachings of a journalism class include: research, analysis, response, and revision
- Media literacy components underscore the importance of thorough analysis, adherence to deadlines, and objective reporting and editorial writing
- Peer editing challenges students to edit and critique others’ writing, while understanding and implementing feedback on their own
- SVP will provide each school with start-up funds to purchase computers, cameras, printers, software, scanners etc to ensure schools have both the hardware and software necessary for launching a newspaper program.
During the first year of the engagement, each school will either implement the journalism elective as an integrated course offering within the school day or create an after-school newspaper program.
If not possible during the first year of the engagement, once in its second year, the newspaper will become an integrated journalism elective. The class will comprise 16-30 students who will each be responsible for producing 1-2 articles per month. The students will also engage in ancillary activities, such as attracting local advertisers and other fundraising activities. The students will publish a school newspaper once a month or 10 issues in the year, and may publish an online version if the school has the resources.
SVP will provide support to print the paper during the 2 years. Depending on the school’s printing preferences, costs may exceed SVP’s allocated printing budget. In this case, the school will need to fund the difference. After the 2 years of support, the program will be fully supported by a combination of advertising revenue, donations, grants, and school support established during SVP’s 2-year partnership.