Publications I students show their type identities before the parade. Photo by Kelsey Capik

Anything that involves costumes and prizes sounds fun, right?

Here’s a little disclaimer: I did not invent this activity. I heard of this idea a few years ago (by reading about it in a yearbook I was critiquing) and decided to adapt the idea for my own students. If you’re reading this post and you’ve done a similar activity, I would love to hear the details so we can compare notes. I definitely plan to do this again.

So, we’d been studying typography in my beginner publications course for a few class periods. We looked at “Meet Your Type” and a few quick YouTube clips, some cool type design projects … even signing a Comic Sans pledge. After all of the activities, notes, PowerPoints, type design (and — gasp! — a quiz), we did this as a fun culminating activity.

Here are the steps:

1. Students each choose a typeface from whatever you have available.

2. Students find a few examples of the typeface in use and determine its personality or identity. (In our case, this part was homework.)

3. The following class period, students come dressed in full costume to represent the identity/personality of their typeface.

4. Holding a printed example of the typeface and its name, they parade through a designated area (we used the cafeteria). They stop midway to introduce themselves to the judges and describe themselves.

EX: “My name is Nuptial Script and I would like to request the honour of your presence at the upcoming ceremony uniting two kindred spirits in holy matrimony.”

EX: “Hola, me llamo Chilada. Want some chips and salsa at my fiesta? Adios!”

5. Judges award prizes and everyone poses for a bunch of photos.

The kids had a blast and it really helped them analyze type styles and what type of attitude or tone certain typefaces convey.

Why do I like it? Oh, so many reasons…

(1) As with all of the Google apps, it’s free, easy and Web-based.
(That’s three reasons in one, if you’re counting.)
(2) Students can ask questions about comments at the time rather than contacting me again later, slowing down the revision process.
(3) It feels personal and gives students a connection, which can be reassuring and motivating, especially when the Google Doc has lots of revision suggestions.

A quick recap from this weekend explains how it works:

A student journalist reports Friday night’s basketball game (see her live game tweets) and shares her story with me via Google Docs. At the same time, she sends me a text message that her story is waiting. The text gives me a heads-up so I don’t need to constantly check my account (I do have a life!), and the student texting indicates that this is a good time for a quick online conference. [Generally I make myself available from 8-9 p.m. for this activity, so everyone can plan accordingly.]

I read the story and insert comments as usual. But then I go to the top right area inside the Doc to see the student’s name (also viewing) and use the pull-down arrow to start a chat. Making comments here in the chat area means fewer comments to delete inside the Doc when it’s ready to copy/paste for publishing. I usually offer 1-2 specific points of praise and one general overall suggestion. The main thing is that I can ask, “What questions do you have for me, while I’m right here, after reading the revision notes and suggested improvement areas?”

Sometimes I get “What did you mean by…” and sometimes students want to rewrite or edit while I’m still viewing the Doc. If time permits, we go for it. They get instant feedback and it’s just like we’re sitting side-by-side in the classroom. It keeps students at the forefront, focusing on their learning rather than the story as a product. It invites questions.

And it’s faster for everyone involved.

This process is great between student/teacher but even better as student/editor. Often that happens much later at night, but the editors offer their perspective and a bit of camaraderie in the editing process. They treat it like a Facebook chat but with an outcome in mind.

News posts much more quickly, and students feel supported in each aspect of the process.

To me, a better conversation is how and why some yearbook programs are thriving and what they’re doing differently to stay relevant as reader wants and needs change by the minute. In Switch: How to Change When Change is Hard, Chip & Dan Heath talk about the bright spot philosophy. Simple concept: Instead of dwelling on problems, look for bright spots and study them closely. Focus on what’s working and do more of it. For my own students, we’ve found success connecting with our readers with Facebook, Twitter, Survey Monkey and a WordPress site. It works for us, so we plan to do more of it. We’ve found that the more we embrace digital media, the easier and more meaningful our work becomes.

Groups willing to reinvent themselves and adapt to new influences will survive even massive changes. They can, and they should. Here are some related thoughts on how digital media can influence yearbook coverage, marketing and production.

Margaret Tinker, Nikki O'Farrell, Kenya Palla and Mikala Klein pose with me to show their Second Place award and a copy of the 2010 Details.

It’s always funny to see what type of souvenirs my students choose to bring home from our trips to national conventions.

Our recent trip to Kansas City for the JEA/NSPA Fall National High School Journalism Convention involved daily trips to Cosentino’s Market, where we gorged on desserts (one student ate an entire chocolate turkey!) and loaded up with touristy items, umbrellas and trinkets. The rainy excursion to Country Club Plaza yielded tons of glittery girl wear from Forever 21, a light-up Santa hat and a mug for a favorite teacher. Trolling the exhibit hall brought “nerdy” but cute pins, pens and imitation Silly Bandz from convention vendors. Almost all of my students shopped in the airport, too, to buy cow-tipping sweatshirts and assorted magnets. I wasn’t sure how they’d manage to get it all home.

There was one other item tucked into a suitcase, too — flat and lightweight but oh, so special for those who earned it: the Second Place certificate from NSPA’s Best of Show Competition for the 2010 Details. Congratulations to last year’s staff for this special recognition.

Advanced students from journalism and publications pose with some of the tools they use daily.

True, journalism and publications students are the ones who get to use the big, fancy digital cameras. They carry lenses worth thousands of dollars, look official with press passes and are known as experts with Flip video and every mobile device imaginable. They carry laptops, digital voice recorders and more.

It’s fun to play with the latest tech toys, and it’s fun for students to express themselves, show creativity, have work published and tell important stories.

But spending time involved in WHS publications has more than just a short-term wow factor. The payoff extends beyond high school, as research confirms that students involved in some type of high school journalism (newspaper, yearbook, or other publication) achieve higher scores on standardized tests and perform better in college, earning better grades and out-performing their peers in writing and analytical skills compared to students who did not participate in high school journalism.

See for yourself in High School Journalism Matters.

So yes, using all of those high-tech gadgets is cool. But it’s just the beginning.

For now, here’s the link.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ZYHP5VW

It’s the same with what we’re trying to do in our student publications. Learning journalism is a huge undertaking. As we venture further into online journalism and multimedia storytelling while maintaining our print publications, it’s scary. So much we don’t know. We don’t even KNOW how much we don’t know. But instead of giving in to our fears, we can make steady (even if small) progress with the “baby steps” method. We’ll get there one step at a time.

Join us Oct. 16, 2010 at The Sacramento Bee

To that end, I’m encouraging all of my journalism students to join me for a Saturday workshop at The Sacramento Bee called Making It Better. Incremental improvement is our goal with every aspect of Whitney Update and The Roar, and those baby steps will amount to huge strides. The workshop offers breakout sessions in beginning, intermediate and advanced levels from pro journalists and top journalism teachers from around the state, so it’s sure to be a Saturday well spent.

CLICK HERE to download a handout about this workshop, scheduled for Oct. 16, 2010.

Students in my classes will learn several ways to create a detailed and accurate selection area, but for now we’re going to focus on using the pen tool. Here are some video clips I created to walk through the steps:

Part 1: Using the pen tool to create a basic selection area.

Part 2: Improve your selection area using the lasso tool.

The rest really depends on what you’re doing with the image. If you want to save the image to place in InDesign, what you need to do next is create a clipping path. Use the Paths palette. Save the path, then choose Clipping Path. Go to File> Save As and save the image to the correct location but adding the word cutout to your file name (EX: IMG2034cutout). Nothing will look different. When you browse images and look at thumbnails, this photo will look like others — that’s why we add the “cutout” term to the file name.

For the purposes of this activity, there’s one final set of steps.

Part 3: Filling the background with a specific color.

Untitled image by s2art on Flickr via CC licensing

Hate to get your hopes up, but AP Style is nothing like House of Gaga or anything fashion-related. It’s a set of guidelines from the Associated Press and serves as industry standard for the conventions we use in journalistic writing.

Is that capitalized? Do I abbreviate or spell it out? When do I use a numeral? Your AP Stylebook has all the answers. You can follow their tweets or ask your own question with the hashtag #apstyle. But for now, here’s our first few rules.

Yes, you need to know this stuff, and yes, you should be following this style in your writing.

1. Numbers: Wow, lots of exceptions here. In general, spell out numbers in a sentence from zero through nine and then use numerals for 10 and higher. (At the beginning of the sentence, however, spell out any number.) We’ll talk about scores, ages and some other expections in our next installment.

2. For time, use only the numeral if the time is on the hour exactly. For example, “the game starts at 7″ (rather than “the game starts at 7:00″). When time is not on the hour, use numerals and a colon the way time appears on a digital clock (“the game starts at 7:05″).

3. Use a.m. and p.m. to clarify time of day. Only use if necessary. Use “noon” or “midnight” to correspond with the 12 hour instead of a.m. or p.m. since so many readers misunderstand these.

4. For dates, abbreviate months with more than five letters by using a capital letter and period (Sept., Jan., Dec.) only when an exact date follows (“Dec. 10″ but December in general). Do not abbreviate months with five letters or fewer (“her birthday is April 21). Do not include a “th” or “rd” or any other ending to the date — use the month and number only.

5. For money, consider the rules for time and you’ll start to see a pattern with AP Style. Less is more! For an even dollar amount, use the dollar sign and numeral but no decimal or 00 after. For example, “tickets cost $8″ (rather than “tickets cost $8.00).