By Gracie Swind, Interim Editorial Managing Editor
Fourth grade students in Ozona Elementary School’s writing club were visited by more than just Santa Claus this winter, as The Lions’ Pride Media Group dropped by with their own gift to give.
Over the course of three weeks and six meetings, Dr. Kasper and I visited the thirteen students and taught them about the principles of journalism, what makes for a good journalist, how to write a journalistic article, and much more. They had lots of questions and were incredibly excited to write their own journalistic articles.
We covered editorials, arts and culture, news, and sports articles with the students and split them into four groups, with each group writing one of the four types of journalistic articles. They were then tasked with writing a 300 to 400 word article on a topic of their choosing, so long as the topic fit the style of article their group was assigned.
Cut Line: The students were involved and cheerful throughout the six meetings we shared with them; they were always eager to participate and share.
After a couple lessons and exercises on writing leads and headlines, the students were ready to hit the ground running on their articles, and run they did. Each group took their articles in a completely unique direction, and several of the groups even challenged themselves to incorporate quotes into their articles.
Saint Leo University and The Lions’ Pride’s visit even caught the attention of the Pinellas County school board, and on the second day of the visit, a camera crew came out to shoot a video about the collaboration between the two schools. The video can be found here: https://youtu.be/2WiBufiKy-k and on the YouTube channel Literocity.
One of the biggest challenges we thought the students might have was with timeliness. In journalism, making sure that your article topics are relevant is incredibly important; we were thrilled to see that the writing club had no such trouble coming up with ideas that were timely, interesting, and fun for them to research and write.
Our arts and culture group chose to do their article as a movie review, with the new release Frozen 2 in their crosshairs. The girls enjoyed the movie and chose to highlight Olaf the snowman’s hilarious hijinks in their review; weaving in their own personal experiences at the theatre, these girls painted a frosty fun image of the movie in a picture-perfect review.
The editorial group found their passion for writing in arguing for artificial trees over live trees in their editorial article focusing on the dangers of live trees to families with pets. They had the unique opportunity of getting a local veterinarian to interview for their article and the girls were very excited to use a reputable source to back their arguments.
In our news group, the girls chose to focus on a charity giving our fallen troops honor during the holiday season. The students reached out to Wreaths Across America with interview questions, but still wrote a successful and informative article even when the representatives didn’t return their email in time to be published; the news group displayed adaptability and tenacity that was very admirable even in the face of disappointment.
The sports group chose to focus on top five teams to make it to the NFL this year, using research they obtained from one of many sport statistic sites. The boys learned about citing sources in articles and even quoted their writing club teacher, Mrs. Swind, at the end of their article; their list was quick and easy to read and bursting with information.
Dr. Kasper (right) taught the students about the editing process, why we need editors, and how editors can make writers’ work even better.
To finish up our visit, the students went through the editing process just like real journalists and we talked about what was successful in their articles and what could use improvement. We left them with the call to read more, since reading great writing will create great writers.
The Lions’ Pride hope to reach out to the Ozona Elementary writing club next winter as well, and continue to serve these future writers with our time and talents. We’re also looking into doing similar journalism programs with local elementary schools in the coming years as well.
“This was an amazing opportunity that was well-received by my principal when I brought her the idea early in September,” said Michelle Swind, fourth grade teacher at Ozona Elementary School and the organizer of the writing club. “Both my principal and I are excited to hopefully work with Saint Leo University again and offer this experience to next year’s writing club.”
Ozona Elementary School’s writing club is so eager to share their articles with the Saint Leo community and The Lions’ Pride is proud to serve as the platform for these little scholars’ first publication. We hope you enjoy reading their work as much as we enjoyed teaching them.
Pictures and Cut Lines:
(This photo should be attached to the main article)
Cut Line: Dr. Kasper (right) taught the students about the editing process, why we need editors, and how editors can make writers’ work even better.
(This photo should be attached to the main article)
Cut Line: The students were involved and cheerful throughout the six meetings we shared with them; they were always eager to participate and share.
(This photo should be attached to the Wreaths Across America Article)
Cut Line: Carlie (left), Zoe (center), and Sofia (right) chose to honor our troops by bringing attention to the charity, Wreaths Across America.
(This photo should be attached to the Editorial, Real Trees vs Artificial Trees Article)
Cut Line: Lucy (left), Sophia (center), and Alida (right) channeled their love of animals through their editorial article about artificial and live trees, asserting that artificial trees are safer for pets.
(This photo should be attached to the Frozen 2 Review Article)
Cut Line: CC (left), Madelyn (center), and Maya (right) represented our arts and culture group and they let their creativity flourish in their movie review about the movie sequel six years in the making, Frozen 2.
(This photo should be attached to the sports article)
Cut Line: Our sports team, Gabriel (far left), Brady (center left), Tyler (center right), and Blaine (far right), are all big football fans, so getting to write about the NFL elated them.
