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Goal
To develop writing and publishing skills; to develop computer skills.
Objective
Learners will plan, write and produce a class newsletter.
Skills
Keyboarding, writing, editing, research, organization, layout, inserting
pictures and graphics in a word processing document, using the digital camera
and/or scanner if available, collaboration.
Pre-requisite skills
Basic word processing skills including cutting and pasting text, changing fonts
and font sizes and aligning text; columns; inserting pictures and graphic
elements; inserting text boxes.
Time
Approximately 4 weeks, with class meeting twice per week for 2 hour classes.
Related Activities
Research Project: A Job I’d Love to Have
Instructor’s Note
Making a newsletter is a great way for the whole class to work together as a
team. Instructors can plant the concept, offer some encouragement and let the
participants take it from there.
The newsletter project works especially well with groups that have already been
doing a lot of writing, since they are accustomed to writing for class and
already have material which they may be able to draw upon or develop further.
It can also be a good preparation for your class if they will be creating a
website in the future.
Activity
The instructor or one of the learners can facilitate a class brainstorm on what the content of the newsletter will be. The focus of the newsletter is up to the students. They can choose a theme, or decide to incorporate articles on a range of topics.
How will you organize your newsletter “staff?” While all the participants should contribute writing and/or art work to the newsletter, it’s a good idea to assign jobs, similar to the responsibilities in a real newspaper. If you’re very organized, you can even write job descriptions. Some jobs/teams you may want to consider are: Art and Design, responsible for design and layout; Editor, responsible for encouraging all the participants to contribute the articles and art work, and for making the production schedule; Technical Support, responsible for scanning photos, printing drafts, duplicating, etc. and Photographers. Participants may volunteer for these jobs, or the class can decide to hold elections.
It is important to set deadlines for this project. If it goes on too long, the participants may lose interest. There should be a due date for the first draft of all articles, and another date when final drafts are due. There should be a date by which all graphics and art work are to be scanned and ready, and a date by which the first draft of the completed newsletter is due. And of course, a date for the final, ready-to-distribute copy of your newsletter.
The class should come up with a name for the newsletter. Once the name is determined, the Art and Design team can begin to create the masthead. (This is easily done using Word Art, if you have Microsoft Word.) Don’t forget to include the volume and issue number, a tag line, and the date of the issue under the header. Each newsletter published in the first year would be Volume I, then each issue is numbered in order. You would begin with Volume I Number 1, and so on. Next year would begin with Volume II Number 1, etc. Example of tag lines are “All the news that’s fit to print” or “News from our Adult Education Program.”
Be sure to give first draft copies of your newsletter to as many people as possible for proofreading. Remember, spell checkers only finds words that are misspelled. If a mistake is made that creates a real word (for example, typing no instead of on) the spell check will not catch it and the article will not make sense.
Follow-up Activity
Distribute the newsletter in your community. Think about publishing your
newsletter on the Web.