From time to time we feature guest columns from Balfour advisers. In this guest post from Interlake High School, adviser Megan Bennett shares her strategy for meaningful summer coverage. Bennett has been teaching for 19 years and advising for 15 years. This post originally ran in the Spring 2019 issue of Balfour’s magazine Elements.
For adviser Megan Bennett of Interlake High School, the key to a productive fall is a detailed summer assignment. The assignment provides summer coverage, new staff assessment and a team-building opportunity. There are two parts to the assignment:
1. Collect at least eight different summer photos for the yearbook, write captions for each one and present them to the class.
2. Create a sidebar or focus story on a summer topic.
I devised this assignment because we wanted to expand our student life coverage to include summer, but when we got back to school, we had trouble gathering pictures and stories. Everyone was focused on new classes and fall activities.
I also have a lot of staff turnover. We are an International Baccalaureate school and not many kids can take yearbook for more than one year, so this assignment allows me to begin instruction and engage the students in yearbook tasks before they start class in the fall. It makes getting started much faster; we have content ready to go on day one.
Yearbook advisers always need something to go into the grade book. The summer assignment gives me a grade to use as a performance barometer for staff members. It’s a quick way for me to assess if they can follow directions, meet deadlines, and understand some basic yearbook concepts. It establishes my expectations, holds students accountable for their work and responsible for maintaining a personal level of excellence.
The Interlake staff’s summer assignment provided coverage of student travel for the student life section.
I have a talk with each staff member who doesn’t complete the assignment about whether or not yearbook is a good choice for them. I have a back-to-school version of the assignment for students who add the class at the beginning of the year.
We also use the summer assignment as an opportunity to do some team building. When staffers present their photos, it allows us to get to know each other. After the presentations, we talk about the trends we see in the summer pictures which helps us design the summer coverage in an authentic way.
The kids really enjoy reliving the summer in their presentations and are excited to start creating yearbook pages and modules in the first weeks of school. It’s a great way for us to start the year.
See a detailed version of the summer assignment and rubric here.
