Editing, Leadership, & Teambuilding
The greatest joy that I have gotten from my role as Editor-In-Chief is from seeing my staff flourish. Whether it is when their first story idea comes to reality, they return from photographing their first sporting event, or just falling in love with the art of interviewing. To obtain this, I always strive to be specific with my staff, walk them through processes step by step, and always be available to help or for questions. This past year, I also worked to build this collaborative relationship with my staff by being the one to teach all of our lessons at the beginning of the year, including team-building activities, and continuing to sprinkle them throughout the rest of the year.
Editing
One of the most enjoyable parts of my role as Editor-In-Chief is actually editing. I love helping younger staff members improve their journalistic and writing skills. All of our stories are written on Google Docs, which makes it very easy for me to comment on my staff's work. When I do so, I always try to be as specific as possible with my critics and always try to make suggestions on how to phrase things, as well as what to take out or leave in.
I also strive to always be available for my staff whenever they have questions about suggested edits or just general questions. I have met staff members numerous times outside of The Chronicle's class period, normally in the library or cafeteria during lunch. During these meetings, I always sit down with the writer and walk them through the edits. I have also called and texted many staff members whenever they needed assistance. I have always loved how open and caring our staff is about their work.
Leadership
I will always be grateful to my advisor for the unique leadership position I have within our class structure. For four years, he has emphasized how The Chronicle is a student publication, which means being fully led by students. During my time this year as Editor-In-Chief, I taught all of our lessons at the beginning of the year, created a daily plan for the entire first semester of school, planned the workflow, and created deadlines sheets and events calendars.
Lessons
Angles Lesson
Interviewing Lesson
I created all of the lessons that I taught this year, and many included teambuilders at the end that practiced the skill we had just gone over. I also planned the lesson order to follow the story writing process where we began with angles, then went to interview etiquette, then into transcripts, and ultimately formatting. The staff was also writing stories in groups as we went through the process, and they were following the steps as they were being taught.
Transition/Story Formatting
Lesson
Photography Basics Lesson
Alternative Story Forms Lesson
Rubrics
The Chronicle is divided into 5 departments - Features (Community & Student Life), Opinions, Sports, Social Media/Marketing. As Editor-in-Chief, I grade a majority of the stories which are posted. Before this year, we only had a story rubric. So this year I created a Social Media Rubric, a Photo Galleries Rubric, and an Opinions Story Rubric.
Calendars & Schedules
This year, I created 2 daily plans for The Chronicle's class periods, one for the first and second quarters. These were critical to our workflow, especially with teaching new staff members how to write at the beginning of the year.
I also create a stories deadline sheet each month, and an events signup sheet for our students to keep track of their deadlines and scheduled events coverage.
This is an example of my formating for our monthly story deadline sheets
This is an example of our events calendars, where we organize events into Athletic & School.
Manager Leadership
This year we also re-implemented a manager system, where we have a Social Media, Sports, Photo Galleries, and two Features Managers overseeing each of their respective departments. I worked alongside my advisor and fellow editor to teach the managers how to post on our website, how to copy edit and the general workflow of managing the staff.
Teambuilding
Collaboration and a connected staff are at the heart of any good publication, and I work my hardest to cultivate a culture through team-building activities and events throughout the school year to help build this. Every school year I have helped to plan and lead our Chronicle Wedding, A Halloween Tales Event, Team Dinners outside of school, Paper Plate Awards at the end of the school year, and our annual Holiday celebration during Finals week.
Additionally, I have also planned and led many in-class bonding activities like Jeopardy, Shark Tank, and a game with object categorization where members of staff are paired up randomly, outside of departments, to increase collaboration skills and bonding.
Photo Olympics
This year I also helped to lead the Photo Olympics, an annual tradition of The Chronicle, where the staff is broken up into three stations, where they have to take pictures that fall into reaction, action, and portrait shots. This also serves as a great team building activity as students work with new people in the class, and get to have fun taking pictures for the first time on staff.
