High school students looking for something worthwhile to do outside the classroom might consider something that has been around almost as long as the schools themselves: writing for the school newspaper or yearbook.
It is hard to think of many activities that teach as many useful skills at once. Writing and editing are only the beginning as a student reporter has to gather information, decide what is important, conduct interviews, ask follow-up questions, check facts, meet deadlines and finally, mesh everything together in a form somebody else will want to read.
Some of the best high schools in the country take student journalism seriously, such as Stuyvesant High School in New York. The school’s student-run newspaper, The Spectator, was founded more than a century ago. It covers news, features, opinion, science, arts, humor and sports. Students do not simply write stories. They edit, take photographs, design pages and help run the publication.
Closer to home, Crown Point High School students produce Inklings through Crown Town Media, covering school news, sports, features and opinion while learning how to work across print and digital formats. Lake Central High School has Lake Central News, where students report on athletics, entertainment, school activities and local issues.
Munster High School’s yearbook, Paragon, placed seventh in the nation in 2021 as part of the National Scholastic Press Association’s top 100 Pacemaker award winners, having received the annual Pacemaker award 15 times. It also distributes a newspaper, The Crier.
Palo Alto High School in California offers another strong example, with its newspaper The Campanile and several other outlets. Students interested in writing can move into photography, broadcasting, design and editing.
The biggest difference between writing for a class and writing for a publication is the audience. Most papers written for a class have one person, the teacher, who reads them, gives them a grade, and then moves on. A newspaper story is read by students, parents, teachers, coaches and administrators, including people who may know more about the subject than the writer does. That tends to sharpen the mind.
Learning how to conduct an interview may be one of the most useful parts of the experience. Teenagers are used to texting parents to ask when parents are going to pick them up or what’s for dinneer, but when you sit across from somebody and have to formulate intelligent questions in the moment, it’s a completely different experience. You have learn how to listen carefully, recognize when an answer does not quite line up with the question that was posed, and have enough confidence to ask the question again even when the source may be intimidating. The best question is often the one you had not planned to ask.
Those skills carry well beyond journalism, starting from when you interview for an internship or a job. In just a few examples from the working world, we know that lawyers interview clients and witnesses, doctors ask questions of patients and colleagues, and business executives try to figure out what customers, employees and competitors are really telling them. Almost every profession rewards people who know how to ask questions, listen carefully and separate useful information from the noise.
Reporting also teaches judgment. A student has to figure out what actually happened, who are the relevant sources to interview about it, and how to sift through seemingly different versions of the same story to get to where the truth lies. It’s is a much different exercise from sitting in a classroom and answering a question for which the teacher already knows the answer.
Yearbook work teaches many of the same lessons. Somebody has to gather information, interview students, write captions, select photographs, check names, design pages and make sure the whole thing gets finished on time. A yearbook is also permanent. Years later, people still pull it off a shelf and look at what the students produced in addition to the dated hairstyles.
Sports writing may be the most fun of all. The score itself is usually the least interesting part of the story as a good sportswriter has to explain how the game turned, why one player mattered, and how a lead disappeared or how a team found a way to win when it looked finished.
Sports also gives young writers room to experiment with language, while trying to avoid obvious cliches. Young writers quickly learn that a good metaphor can make a story come alive, while too many can bury it.
The transition from high school journalism to a college newspaper can be surprisingly easy. Students who have spent several years reporting and editing already arrive with something many freshmen do not have: experience, published clips and an understanding of deadlines.
A good strategy is to arrive on campus a little early, before classes begin, find the student newspaper office and introduce yourself to the editors. Let them read several of your best stories and be willing to engage with their critiques.
Your first assignment may not be glamorous. It might be a student government meeting, a lecture, a club event or a minor sports contest. It may seem bland, but take it seriously. Editors quickly learn who meets deadlines and is willing to dig a little deeper, in contrast to those who disappear after announcing how much they love journalism.
There is also a social advantage as a freshman joining a college newspaper immediately becomes part of a group with a common purpose and can help students find their place. Reporters meet professors, administrators, coaches, athletes and visiting speakers. Within a semester, a student journalist may understand how the university operates better than students who have been there much longer.
From the standpoint of college admissions, I would put sustained work on a school newspaper or yearbook ahead of many expensive summer programs designed mainly to decorate an application. A student with three years of reporting, editing and publication experience shows persistence and responsibility. More importantly, there is an actual body of work to show for it as well as finding your voice as a writer.
For students who want to become better writers, the path is still remarkably tried-and-true: Join the newspaper or yearbook, find something worth writing about, talk to people who know something about it, listen carefully and keep doing it until you get better.
Gerald Bradshaw is an international college admissions consultant with Bradshaw College Consulting in Crown Point.
