Celeste Alters of Hoover High School and Amrita Jagpal of Lakota East High School work on their pages in Susan Kirkman's "Putting Your Design to Work" class. Photo by Laura Contrucci.

OSMA sessions mark new beginning

A class team composed of Eastlake North adviser Lorraine Gauvin, Wilmington student Chase Yeakley and Solon students Lauren Matevish and Catherine Pomiecko works on a story-planning project in Susan Kirkman's session, "Putting Your Design to Work." Photo by Laura Contrucci.
October workshop marks first step toward new statewide organization

By Isabelle Jones

High school students typically don’t discuss legal or ethical issues or receive writing improvement tips early on a Saturday morning, but Ohio Scholastic Media Association Region 1 members did and, based on their reactions, liked it.

Region 1 of Ohio Scholastic Media Association held its first annual workshop at Kent
State University Oct. 13 in Franklin Hall, where high school journalists and their advisers attended a day-long session relating to journalism. 

Jan Leach, assistant professor and former editor of the Akron Beacon Journal, talks with students in her "Just Add Water and Stir" session.

Kent State faculty presented the sessions to the 56 students and seven advisers. Participants represented 14 different schools at the five-hour workshop.  Students and advisers chose one of the nine sessions offered, ranging from reporting and writing advice to ethics, law and design.

To attend the workshop, students paid $5 and advisers, who also received lunch, paid $10.  After expenses, the money will go to the Student Press Law Center.

Angela Spano, adviser of the GlenOak High School newspaper, The Eagle, said the
workshop benefited her students by enabling them to hear good story ideas and law advice from professionals, rather than just hearing them in the classroom.

“[We learned about] the basics of InDesign, which was good because we haven’t used it
in-depth before,” Jen Koudelka, a member of Twinsburg’s Tiger Prints staff, said of her session about the basics of  InDesign, presented by Evan Bailey, production manager of the Office of Student Media at KSU. 

Alex Kokinov, member of Theodore Roosevelt’s The Colonel, attended the session titled “One question is all you need,” where KSU adjunct professor Rick Senften discussed how one question and a strong coaching process can enhance stories. 

Adjunct professor Rick Senften and M.L. Schultze, news director of WKSU, talk about the coaching process with their session, "One Question Is All You Need." Photo by Laura Contrucci

Kokinov said the session “emphasized how journalism isn’t just about writing” because it is also about “talking to people and understanding what’s going on around you.”

John Bowen, KSU adjunct professor and JEA Scholastic Press Rights Commission chair, gave a session focused on avoiding legal and ethical troubles through the use of solid reporting and writing.

From this, Lakota East High School student Matt Myers said he has a better understanding of ethics, which should help him and other staff members to decide which stories should run in the newsmagazine and how they should be written.

John Bowen and Candace Perkins Bowen, director of the Center for Scholastic Journalism and a KSU assistant professor, along with graduate assistant Audrey Wagstaff, organized the workshop, finding instructors and structuring the day.

The Bowens selected instructors who had been well-received at other workshops, John Bowen said.  Initial planning began in late spring, while the largest part of the planning happened in the fall.

OSMA Region 1 will continue to have a fall workshop each year.  John Bowen said he would like to see some session topics change in the future, especially as technology changes.
 
With the introduction of new design software, for example, sessions may be held to instruct students the basics of the program.  Bowen said he would also like to see yearbook sessions and more Web-related topics in the future.

Students work through their page layouts in Evan Bailey's "Putting Your Design to Work." Photo by Laura Contrucci

The other four regions of OSMA will have fall workshops in place by the fall of 2008, Candace Bowen said.

The Bowens both said the small group size of each session was a plus, allowing students to ask questions and actively participate. 

The small setting was “very nice” and “facilitated discussion,” Lakota East student Graylyn Roose said.

According to student and adviser written evaluations, the workshop exposed them to new ideas or reinforced those they already knew.  Several students who went to the session about press law, presented by Mark Goodman, former director of the Student Press Law Center and soon-to-be Knight Chair for Scholastic Journalism at KSU, said they learned “valuable,” “relevant” information, one writing that Goodman “covered all [he or she] wanted.” Other students and advisers wrote they liked the hands-on portions of the sessions. 

“The instructors and hands-on approach to the sessions made it a very high-end learning experience,” Candace Bowen said.

“[This workshop] is a good way for students, especially at the beginning of the year, to acquire some new skills,” Wagstaff said. 

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