Another First Draft Reader-Supported Project Gets Off the Ground

Our resident Freepaholic, Tommy, asked you some time back to join in supporting a journalism project to help make tomorrow's media. In just a day you had that one handled the way you'd handled the two I asked about the week prior, and here are the results:

The teacher involved writes:

Dear Tommy,

Once again, I would like to thank you all very much for supporting both my Journalism and my Grammar&Composition classes!

I had originally anticipated that the LCD projector would be most beneficial to my senior Journalism students because we do a lot of PowerPoint lessons, surfing the net, and blogging as part of the class; however, I discovered that my freshmen Grammar & Composition classes also excelled in phrases, clauses, and sentence types with the use of projected and interactive lessons. In fact, the freshmen were disappointed that I didn't think of them when I wrote the proposal. They were pleased to reap the rewards of having it in the classroom though!

I cannot begin to explain what a boon the LCD projector has been to all of my students. It has allowed my Journalism students to critique layouts of both professional and student newspapers as a large group. It has helped me show my students how to avoid plagiarism by navigating websites that show proper citation and sticky situations to avoid. It has reminded my students that there are people, unrelated to education in a direct way, that want them to succeed and are willing to facilitate that success.

Thank you so much for your generous donations. My students and I very much appreciate your help.

With gratitude,
Ms. D.

I love that it's being used to teach not just ooh shiny toy but basic skills, because the skill set — communicating clearly and intelligently — crosses platforms and will apply to journalistic tools the kids may have to use that aren't in wide circulation yet. I also love that the lesson they're learning is that they as future journalists and future media consumers are important and that we care.

Well done, everybody.

A.

Comments

[hoppy]

I don't know about anyone else, but the thrill I get from seeing this stuff makes the pitifully small donations I gave to various Donors Choose projects seem like nothing at all. This is an addiction, but a magnificent one.

[Athenae]

hoppy, Mr. A's and my favorite game to play on long car rides is "what would you do if you won the powerball" and the best part of that game is figuring out, once we got all the obligatory selfish shit out of the way (paying off our house, taking a trip to Italy), who we'd give it all away to. So many places to help where you really truly can make an impact.

A.

[pansypoo]

grammar? waz that?

pfft.. i did that internets test. i am a language GOD! i am reeeely good and multiple choice. reading improves grammar.

[Bill]

This is great. The future of journalism will certainly belong to those who can keep up with and innovate new technologies. There are some great interviews with top journalists about the future of journalism at http://www.ourblook.com/component/option,com_sectionex/Itemid,200076/id,8/view,category/#catid69 about issues such as these.

[Tommy T]

I do find it amusing that Ms. D can't bring up, for the class to see, the decidedly NSFS site First-Draft that helped fund the project (all the wirty durds, you know).

Feels good all the same.

[spocko]

Tommy T, interesting. Reminds me that when I write to the advertisers of KSFO I can't include the words that the right wing talk radio hosts say on the air because they are the corporations spam filters will get them! I told a recent advertiser that their spam filters have a higher professional standard than the hosts on KSFO and what does that tell you about the station?

Now I'll also bet that the teacher (and maybe 3 smart students) might pop over here and see the site. I want to say this to them. "If you want to understand some of the real hot issues in journalism and the future of it, READ THIS First-Draft!"

Athenae is a world class writer and her insights are not to be missed. If you don't want the snarky foul mouthed fun, buy her book!
http://www.amazon.com/Doesn%1At-End-Newspaper%1As-University-Challenged/dp/0788444476/ref=sr_1_22?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1199286825&sr=8-22
It is about the college newspaper The Cardinal. It reads like a great fiction novel and it involves real live students in tough journalism, moral and financial dilemmas. You want to assign extra credit for a zoomer in the class? Assign this instead of 'All the President's Men" the student will figure out that they have more in common with The Cardinal editors, reporters and business managers than with Woodward and Bernstein, yet the Cardinal editors did as much groundbreaking reporting at those two. The Cardinal editors brought down a winning football coach and exposed financial misdealing at the highest levels of the University. Those are all things that they can relate to and understand how it is done.

Maybe I should ask one of our First Draft readers to send you their copy so you don't have to buy it. But to send back support for Allison maybe you could convince the zoomer student to buy a copy for his or her extra credit reading. That way Allison sells more books and the student begins to understand the price of quality journalism on a personal level.

I think reading her book might help your class and it's students, but since I'm a Vulcan I don't know if my ideas will be useful here on Earth.