December 29, 1999

These students' newspapers are a step back in time

By Justin Trapp
Herald staff writer
       If you stopped at a newsstand to purchase a newspaper and were suddenly confronted by publications with titles like The Roman Times, Babylonian Weekly, and The Aztec Gazette, you'd probably wonder if you had been swallowed by some mysterious time warp and spit out in antiquity.
      For some humanities students at Central High School, the above scenario was a kind of reality.
      Humanities students in Pat Weber, Sean Jones, and Peg Townsend's classes were asked to choose a civilization, research it, and make a newspaper based on their findings.
      "It was really interesting," said Nathan Kitchen, a student at CHS and co-editor of The Celtic Times. "It gave us an insight on how much work it takes to put into something like this (newspaper)."
      Pat Weber, humanities instructor and a former newspaper employee, decided that the kids should know more about ancient civilizations before jumping into more modern history, but couldn't find the time for extensive lectures. She and a teaching partner created a project for the kids where they could research the civilization as a "legacy" issue, and then apply that knowledge into a newspaper format.
      "Our struggle with students today is that they only incidentally learn," Weber stated. "They're a video generation. They really had to take this information and process it, so they could put it together in a totally different format."
      Students began with a timeline, a map, and other bits of information they picked up on their civilization from encyclopedias, specialized books, online sources, and other available resources.
      Features of the students' newspapers included crossword puzzles, hard news, features, bylines, cutlines, mastheads, and other standard newspaper content and format.
      Editors of the newspapers were taught the basics of newswriting and layout. Training included writing nursery rhymes as news stories, as well as learning the different types of fonts for various texts within the paper.
      By the time the project was over, many had learned through personal difficulty how much effort it takes to put together a newspaper, said Weber. Despite those difficulties, when asked if the students would like to do the project again, they responded "In a minute," Weber said.