Austin High Election Coverage

Austin High Students find coverage strong, but a few weaknesses. One of the more interesting comments made by more than one of my students is that the coverage did not really explain how the results of the election would affect the Austin and surrounding areas. We only read the paper once a week, but they wanted more "home town impact." One of the recommendations from the students is to offer an explanation for the editorial cartoons. Several of the kids said that they thought the cartoons were sometimes funny, they were unsure why they were funny. What an interesting idea, offer an explanation of the cartoons so that everyone would be able to enjoy them. On that note, the students are often asked to read and analyze editorial cartoons as a way to get ready for the TAKS test. I think the kids would appreciate being able to understand the cartoons.

LBJ High School with Mr. Cedric Golden

Mr. Cedric Golden, spotswriter for the Austin American Statesman visited my AP English III class on Tuesday the 11th. We all want to thank him for coming to talk with us. He was engaging and my kids loved him. Rather than try to find a strong article written by only one of my kids, I am going to post direct quotes from their responses to his visit.

I will also say that out of 22 kids in attendance that day, I received nothing but positive comments. The only one that I can possibly see as a negative is the one from the young lady who wanted to know why he only spoke about sports. I hope I cleared that up for her.

He is welcome in my class whenever he wants to come by. The quotes from my students follow.

"The hardest part of his job was writing the first few sentences."

"He gave us tips on what to expect working in the real world."

"What I remember most is that even though he has met lots of people, he still has some more he wants to meet."

"He seems like he has great advice for young writers."

"If LBJ beats Lake Travis, he said he would be up here on Monday morning to talk to the team."

"I like how he said writing can take a reader to new places."

"The two people he most wants to meet are Charle Barkley and Muhammed Ali."

"He seemed like he really enjoyed his job."

"He started his career when he was 11 or 12 years old on a school newspaper."

"I honestly can say I will start reading the newspaper more."

Visit to Ann Richards School

This morning I had the pleasure of visiting the yearbook class at Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders.

I talked to the girls about my job as a reporter at the Statesman, explaining the watchdog role of reporters who cover the Texas Capitol and the use of multimedia by newspapers. I also explained how an idea becomes a story and shared with them a recent series of articles I wrote in India about medical tourism (Statesman.com/medicaltourism).

The girls were bright and engaged students who were great listeners and had some good questions for me. They asked me if I've ever been scared before an interview (yes!), how I decide what the beginning of my stories will say and when I knew I wanted to become a journalist. 

Then, it was my turn to ask the girls questions. They told me about their work on the yearbook. This is their school's second year of existence and the first year to have a yearbook class. One of them just finished an article about the significance of best friends.  As for news habits, one girl said she doesn't tune into the news because it's often sad and depressing. 

Thank you to teacher Vilma Cajigas and to the girls of the yearbook class! Here is a picture from my visit. I'm in the back center and Ms. Cajigas is on the right.

- Corrie MacLaggan, reporter, Austin American-Statesman

Austin-American Statesman Tour -Oct. 2008 - John Kelso

After the tour of the Austin-American Statesman, we met several reporters. We had the pleasure of meeting John Kelso (John Kelso's column is printed on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays). He was telling our group about his story in his column of "Lipstick on a Pig".

(More pictures will be posted by the end of the week of the tour.)

Week 4: Nov. 3, 2008 -Time to Evaluate 2008 Presidential Election News Coverage

Ojeda Middle School - 6th grade Reading (Pre-AP)

Students discussed in their groups the most important issues discussed in this election:

• The Iraq War
• Gas prices
• The Economy

All 5 groups recommended that when covering future Presidential elections, the newspaper should include students in a mock election (per school), results being posted in the newspaper so students see that their input is valued. Also, negative comments should not be printed. Presidential election coverage should be to the point and not about who did what or how they voted in the past, but rather what are they going to do different from the present President of the United States. Elections are complicated enough. Students want coverage that sticks to the point.

Students found "Now It's Time to Choose" Section A-1 interesting because it featured pictures of both candidates with a few details mentioned. Students also found "Obama's Grandmother Dies in Hawaii" - Section A-3 interesting. The comments made in several of the groups were of how Obama would be able to focus on the campaign when going through such pain. Sympathy was shown even by nonsupporters of Obama.

The groups came to a consensus about issues being discussed at home that were not discussed much in the presidential elections. (Students were asked to watch presidential debates in order to discuss this.)

Issues being discussed at home:

• Education--funding/scholarships for college, public school funding
• Immigration
• Health insurance for everyone (that made sense to students)

Some students recommended getting students to be "reporter of the week" and cover presidential elections at the campus level and printing their story in the newspaper.

Week 3: October 27, 2008: The Many Faces of a News Story.

Ojeda Middle School/ 6th grade Reading (Pre-AP)

If students were the editor of the newspaper and had to decide which story would be the featured story or column, they would select

• "Man Charged in Death at Club" by Laura Heinauer (Section B- Metro&State page 1) or


• "Ugly But Effective: Defense Puts Cowboys Back on Winning Track" by Jaime Aron (Section C -Sports page 1)

Criteria they used to select these stories:

• Stories were about topics familiar to them (first one is about a place that a lot of my students know about because it is in their neck of the woods/second one--many are Cowboy fans)


• Wording of bylines ("death" and "winning track")


• Second article --picture caught reader's attention

When discussing news story vs. feature story vs. editorial vs. column, I requested that the groups find examples of each in the newspaper and then we discussed how each one was written and which was more interesting. Students gravited toward the feature story rather than the news story because there wasn't too many facts to remember in the feature story examples and they were more interesting to read. The editorial and columns were not as interesting because the issues being discussed were not familiar to the students. The discussions I heard among the 5 groups were engaging and ran rather smoothly. Each group had a scribe, a time keeper, a spokesperson, a reader and an editor that paraphrased or summarized the groups comments into 10-15 words.

Week 1 / Week 2 Free Reading Choices/Engaging Stories

I apologize for the lateness of my postings...been dealing with dear ones passing away, children sick, etc. They say they come in threes! The first week I had some difficulty in getting my newspapers, but Debra Debra Waugh Joiner (Newspapers in Education Manager Austin American-Statesman) quickly made sure that my newspapers arrived by that Friday.

Ojeda Middle School/ 6th grade Reading Pre-AP
Week 1 / Week 2 Activities - October 16, 2008 newspaper edition (completed on Friday, Oct. 17th):

When students were given time to free read, most students read the comics or the horoscopes. Mostly boys read the comics. When they discussed in their groups why they made these selections, they responded that they chose comics/horoscopes to read because it wasn't related to school and it made them laugh.


When asked to read an engaging story...4 out of the 5 groups read "In Final Debate, Attacks Overshadow Issues" and "McCain Keeps Obama on Defensive, But Will That Be Enough to Win the Race?" (found on the front page of the first section of newspaper).

The 5 groups discussed what would be the lead story and came up with the following criteria for choosing a lead story:

*Title is the biggest print on the front page of section
*Issue being written about is something readers need to know about immediately
*Lead story has a picture or graphic organizer.

The lead stories were the same as the engaging stories read.