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My class of 4th graders welcomes the weekly Monday edition of the News-Journal every week into our classroom. We use it for many assignments and research topics.

Right now, we are researching famous African-Americans and various issues that deal with the Civil Rights. As a teacher who promotes tolerance and acceptance of all diversities, I truly appreciate the added resource of the weekly newspaper in our classroom. It really reaches out and exposes the students to all levels of diversity, and it even teaches about non-acceptance through the examples of news stories that are published each week.

We also use the paper for reporting weekly current events on our "current event" task sheets. The task integrates all areas of language arts with Social Studies. This weekly report is recorded as a Social Studies grade. The "best-of-the best" are posted each week on the NIE bulletin board. Students love coming in on Monday to see whose articles are displayed.

We are fortunate to have a Peace Corps volunteer as a class pen pal. She is serving in Kyrgyzstan. The class watches the paper for news from the area where she is working and from the surrounding areas, as well. This promotes teaching of cultures and geography in the classroom. We also have class pen pals from Louisville, Kentucky, so we watch for news from their hometown and state, as well.

Using the Business Classified, and Accent sections allows us to do many consumer education activities in class, too. We may "shop" for holiday gifts, household needs, entertainment and cultural activities while reading the paper.

Having the newspaper available in class provides my class with an excellent opportunity to enhance and enrich our regular fourth grade curriculum and instruction in school. Many of my students´ families are participating in the family literacy program that the News-Journal has provided through the free subscription / home delivery project, also.

I want to thank the News-Journal for continuing to promote education and literacy in the home and in the schools. I have been an NIE teacher since the project was first developed, and I find it an amazing useful resource.

After nearly six months of integrating NIE into our regular classroom curriculum and instruction, our class is ready to use the News-Journal as a model for development of our own class newspaper!

We brainstormed a list of jobs/ responsibilities that are directly related to publishing a class newspaper. After discussion and description of each "department" that we would need to form in order to publish our own newspaper, the students then wrote applications for their top two choices for jobs. Each child had to state why he/ she should be hired for the position of his/ her choice. The "application" letters were reviewed by the editors (the teacher and her student intern from Stetson), and then the jobs spots were filled.

Listed below are the departments:

Editors are the two teachers. Final decisions will be made by the editors.

We hope to have two editions published by the end of the school year! The students are excited about publishing a class newspaper! They know that they will have many hours of work, but they also know that the work will be worth the effort!

Bright Ideas Contest Winner - 2004
Category: 4-5 Level

Deb Hibdon
4th Grade
Volusia Pines Elementary

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