How to Make a Class Newspaper

Many educational institutions encourage students to experience and enjoy a variety of communications mediums. A class newspaper is one such option. Many teachers use class newspapers to communicate school news among the student body and highlight individual student achievements. If your school or class is interested in starting a newspaper, here are some tips to guide you through the process.

Instructions

1. Get the okay from the school administration. Many school administrations have policies in place that say that the principal of a school has to give permission for student groups to establish any new club or organization. Before you get ideas for your class newspaper off the ground, outline what you want to do and the purpose you want your newspaper to serve and present it to the school administration. Give them a pitch of your ideas and be sure you explain why you think it's important for a class newspaper at your school. Ask them for input and you may even go so far as to see if they would be willing to establish a specific class devoted to journalism. Many journalism classes not only teach basic writing principles, but are also responsible for putting together and distributing a class newspaper for the school.

2. Establish a plan for content. What do you want your newspaper to say? What kind of stories do you think will appeal to the students at your school? Schools, with a multitude of student-oriented activities and organizations, are perfect for finding interesting stories. Ask your fellow students what they want to see in the class newspaper. Ask teachers if you can hand out surveys in their classrooms, polling students on the issues that are important to them. Once you have some feedback from the student body, then sit down with your newspaper adviser and staff and flesh a plan of content for the first few issues. Seeing your ideas organized on paper will allow you to see if you are covering a diverse and balanced array of topics.

3. Assign roles and responsibilities. There are many different responsibilities that must be handled when it comes to putting together a class newspaper. In addition to the editor-in-chief, which is the person responsible for everything regarding the newspaper and has the ultimate authority when it comes to determining how the paper should look and the content found within it. However, you also need a managing editor (which is a sort of backup to the editor-in-chief), a photographer, a graphic designer to do layout and design and a staff of writers to actually compile and write the stories for your newspaper. Some staffs choose to make the roles as close to an actual newspaper as possible, instituting roles for illustrators, copyeditors, proofreaders and more. Other students choose to take advantage of being a class newspaper and may assign some staff members silly job titles, such as Chief Newspaper Delivery Flunky or something equally silly.

4. Set deadlines. Deadlines are the very essence of the newspaper business, either professional or student-run. Deadlines are what helps to pull it all together and ensure that your product will always come out in a timely manner. Deadlines should be set by the editor-in-chief and the class teacher or adviser. If the process of doing the newspaper is an actual class, then it doesn't hurt for the teacher to assign grades to deadlines, meaning when they are missed, the person's grade for the actual class is lowered. This teaches the student staff members the importance of deadlines and why they must always strive hard to meet them. This is one part of the class newspaper generation process that can be looked at as a real world learning experience.

5. Request the school purchase several computers, if you don't already have computers. Utilizing page design and word processing programs on the computer is the best way to actually make your class newspaper. Microsoft Word, which is part of the Office Suite package, is the best place in which to type your stories. Long ago, schools primarily used Pagemaker to build class newspapers, but now technically-savvy kids use programs like Adobe Photoshop and Quark Xpress. These are basic design and editorial programs that are easy to install in just about any computer and come with built-in tutorials for ease of use.

6. Contract with a local printing vendor. You need to get your newspaper printed and most schools prefer that you do so with an outside printing source. Most local printers will print class newspapers at a greatly reduced rate, adding to the professional look of your product. Moreover, in this age of technology, most printers will allow you to simply email your files to them, they will print your class newspaper and either ship or deliver it back to you for distribution among students in your school.

7. Pinpoint distribution locations. Will you put a class newspaper in each classroom? Or will you have boxes in strategic locations around your school, such as the library or cafeteria? You should figure this out before launching with your newspaper product so you know ahead of time how the distribution process will proceed. Most class newspapers have a better rate of success delivering to individual classrooms as it allows teachers an opportunity to discuss the newspaper as a part of their lesson and ensures more eyes get to scan the final print product.