Each week, you need to come up with three story ideas. The ideas should try and deal with things you can write about in your section, but you may also develop ideas for other sections as well.
Each of these story ideas needs must include the following information:
- A brief one to two sentence summary of the idea – why is it important to our school community?
- Potential sources – these should be as specific as possible, although you may not know the names of the students you would talk to, but begin to come up with something more concrete than just listing “teachers and students”
- Visuals – how can this story be visually represented in the newspaper? Photos? Graphics? Illustrations? Be specific with your ideas.
- Sidebar: What could be a good sidebar to go with your story?
Here is an example of what I am looking for:
Idea #1:
Story idea: How many languages are spoken at our school? How many students do we have whose native language isn’t English? What happens when a student enrolls from another country and doesn’t speak English? What are our ESL classes like?
Sources: ESL Teachers – Mr. O’Donnell, students in ESL programs, administrator in charge of ESL
Visual: Graphic showing the languages spoken and student numbers, photos of ESL classes
Sidebar: How does it feel to be a student who is new to America? With the help of ESL teachers, find a student to profile about his or her experiences.
Sidebar visual: Photo of student
