Mendham School Newspaper Makes Learning Fun and Real

The Mendham Township Elementary School is set to relaunch its elementary school’s newspaper, The Tiger Times. For some talented young students, publishing the newspaper provides a bridge between skills learned in class and application in the real world.

Writers can begin to develop and enhance their craft at a very early age in Mendham Township. A group of Fourth Graders in the Mendham Township Elementary School have taken the initiative to relaunch the school’s newspaper, The Tiger Times. Since the beginning of the school year, they have volunteered time from their recess breaks to work on developing the first issue of the revised newspaper. Under the guidance of Ms. Tracy Newton, Mendham Township Elementary School – Media Specialist, the students have been preparing to select topics, research background and analyze findings and data, discuss perspectives, assess fairness, and finally summarize their findings for publication in the newspaper.

The newspaper brings an invaluable opportunity to extend traditional classroom learning and to support developing writers as they further enhance their analytical skills and writing talents. The student reporters typically meet at least once a week in the school’s library. At the beginning of the project, the students focused on analyzing similar published media, reading through newspapers to identify formats and the different elements incorporated in writing a news article. This activity also helped them identify subjects and items of interest that may appeal to readers. As the weeks progressed and their publishing vocabulary expanded, the student began selecting topics that they thought would be appealing to their target market: fellow students! School news and events are an easy choice and will be the basis for the first issue. This led to the reporters interviewing school staff, teachers, and students. The reporters realize that other topics such as sports, health, software, music, or movies may also be popular and eventually the publication may expand its scope. The practice of writing an article allows the different student reporters to strengthen their writing skills by investigating a topic that interests them and then writing their article or report. The editing and revision process provides discipline and refinement to their writing skills. The publication itself will give these young students confirmation of all their hard work and, it is hoped, will stimulate further classroom discussions. The ability to share news and contact the reporters with ideas and suggestions helps forge a sense of community among all students attending the school.

The Tiger Times is scheduled to have its first issue released in December. Paper and digital copies will be available, and a link to the publication will be also available via the Mendham Township School District’s Facebook website: https://www.facebook.com/mtsdnj/