I'm a teacher?

So I started making use of my guinea pigs…my writers…I’m conducting a workshop on news writing and editing, well for their good and mine. I’m not yet certain of what future profession I will take so I’m going to try some random tests.

February 3, 2012. We had our first meeting…I had nine pupils…Myrna, Jela, Jeffrey, Mei Anne, Mayette, Cherry, Enjennette, Shenmae, and Joey. So we started the session with a prayer led by Cherry then we proceeded to the main course.

First, I gave them copy reading symbols and three questions.

What is the role of a student journalist?

“We right for you, we fight for you.” Explain.

Why should you still be in TN?

I purposely made the “write” to “right” just to know if they’ll notice it. Only, two of them noticed it.

After answering the questions, they exchanged papers and we started checking. I made them rate the answers of the classmates. Then, many of them answered that student journalists should be the “voice of the students”.

As each one of them read the answers of their classmates, I asked them if they were applying what they have written on their answer sheets, apparently, it was no good. But my true intention was to remind them why they are here in TN and fortunately they got the message.

I must say that I got confident to go on with the workshop since they were happy with the activity and they were looking forward to more meetings.

Next on our list was copy reading and lead writing. I gave them two articles…”No more acquaintance parties and SG govs find alternatives for acquaintance parties”.

They were quite shocked since we went to editing rather than news writing but that’s my way of teaching. Then, we checked the papers and no one got even one half of the items. But I overlooked it since that was their first examination. It was fun checking the papers because they were so confident that they’ll get high scores but they all failed. Which was somehow confusing since the exam was so easy. But it’s good news since it only proves that there is still a big room for learning. It was a thirty five item exam.

After that, we shared some snacks I bought. But, one of my students skipped, Jeffrey. I really don’t know what the reason for the sudden disappearance…it maybe because it was Flyday.

So to continue with the session, we had our final test for the dawn…copy editing…then, we checked, they have improve a little but still it was no good. The highest was 14 out of 25 items. So I gave them a take home exam…opinion writing.

Well, Myrna is currently ranked first with 28.5 over 70.

The workshop aims to evaluate the writers’ knowledge and ability on student journalism. The workshop promotes good journalism and equips writers with the proper attitude towards news gathering. The writer/s with the lowest scores by the end of the week will accordingly receive a penalty. The penalty will be decided by the Top Scorer. Uncompleted penalties will result to honorarium reduction.