Newspaper Class: Week 1

Yesterday we had a planning meeting, and debated a lot of important questions.
It's vital that the children have ownership of their plans and ideas, so they
can really get behind the effort to produce a paper. I'm trying not to tell them
what to do or make decisions for them. It might take us longer to get organized
this way, but in the end it will be a more memorable learning experience if they
have to wade through some of these potential pitfalls themselves.

The students broke down responsibilities for organization this way:

1. Publishing: Jacob and Stephen are in charge of researching printing options and comparing
prices from several different vendors for black and white or color printing.

2. Market Research: Sarah Berry is in charge of putting together the survey that we will be sending
in your direction. There are three market research questions to help guide their
decisions.

3. Corporate Planning: The others in the group are tasked with coming up with a tagline and mission
statement for the paper. What is our goal? What is our scope? What do we hope to
accomplish? And how do we plan to present ourselves to the world?

What is a tagline?

Think of these examples:

"Let your fingers do the walking."
"Think different."
"All the news that's fit to print."
"Just do it."
"Fair and balanced."
"Can you hear me now?"

Here's a good article about creating a tagline on copyblogger.com.

What is a mission statement?

A mission statement is a document created by a company to focus its purpose and
goals. It should define what we want to do and how we want to do it. It's our
reason for existing, defined in a paragraph. What need do we fill? What do we
believe in? How will we reach our goals?

So, those are the assignments for this week -- let me know if you have
questions, and feel free to have the kids email me for clarification or help!