Day 8 - Longer Hours, Shorter Days
Banneker Day 5
I was supposed to be in from 3:30-4:45. Now my days are 3:15-6:00. Significantly longer, you might say? Especially when I’m at the DCCC from 9:00. It’s okay because while there’s work to do tonight, it’s not impossible and it’s not due tomorrow.
It was the start of a new issue, and while we didn’t have half the number of kids who showed up for the first one, the kids who were there seemed invested.
Showing up at 3:15 is definitely beneficial. I beat the rush of kids leaving school and get to start in with Mrs. Brinkman before kids are ready to go. Today I worked on the layout until about 4:00. Last week I’d tried to get the bare bones in place, give the kids some ideas (and some tips) and worked out the front page. To my great surprise, they pulled out all the stops and made a great looking paper in that one week.
I went through as a layout editor and fixed little things until I joined the group brainstorming session. It reminded me so much of high school - kids fighting over stories and debating the content until they circled back into what would make it a good story. I added some tips about surveys (why not put all the questions for all their stories in one? Get some stats on who has drivers licenses if you’re doing that story. Stats are always nice) and joined in the debate over technology usage at school. It was great. I really need to write Mrs. Gay soon and tell her how much The Charter has helped me - not just in journalism, but in doing something, even something small, that makes just a bit of an impact.
When we were done with the story assignments (I might suggest Charter worksheets I made with sources and questions and whatnot for the third issue, and it’s sad to think that’ll be the last issue I’m a part of) we went back to copy edit. I do appreciate our journalist, Sylvia, but she is incredibly nitpicky and keeps us all there longer than need be. She rushed out at 5:45 because she had to teach a class, and yet she was the one who was picking out AP Style. AP Style is important, no question, but not as important as other things.
Brandon and Detrieck were the last ones there. Brandon did the Obama story and Detreick’s been around a lot. They’re both great, a lot of fun, and they seem to think I’m okay. Brandon and I really hitted off on our mutual hatred of Kindles. He was also impressed at what I could do with InDesign, which really is a foreign language. I’m going to start doing “how to” handouts that the kids can reference for when I’m not here.
When it starts to get really dark, I’ll make a point of leaving earlier. But Mrs. Brinkman is so lovely (and reminds me a fair bit of my mom, if she was a high school librarian) and we have such great conversations that I don’t really mind the late hour.
Roosevelt reminds me a lot of USM, my old school. It makes me miss it, that’s for sure.
