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Top of the class

Students chronicle their 'Times'

Kids at John Hopkins Middle School produce the newest issue of the JHop Times, focusing on diversity.

By RITA FARLOW
Published January 25, 2006

ST. PETERSBURG - Joy Gann, 12, stepped up to the microphone and introduced herself as a member of the JHop Times staff.

Wearing a black JHop Times shirt, the seventh-grader wanted to know why Boys and Girls Club director Herbert Murphy decided to install a recording studio at the Royal Theater.

Murphy said the project came about after planning sessions with the teen council.

"Most decisions made for kids are made by adults," Murphy said, adding that he thought it was important for the children to have input on the project that would affect them.

Gann thanked Murphy for his response and took her seat in the front row of the auditorium at John Hopkins Middle School as a classmate went to the microphone to ask another question.

Last week, JHop Times interviewed Murphy and local rap group the Knuckle Headz at a press conference and unveiling of the journalism program's most recent issue: a four-page special edition focused on diversity.

Under the guidance of journalism teachers Jenny Butkus and Robin Serne, the students put out the paper in one month. Last year, the school produced two editions of the paper; this year, teacher Jenny Butkus has expanded the program to four editions. The current edition includes opinion stories on discrimination, student reaction pieces on diversity and the influence of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Butkus said the kids helped come up with the current edition's diversity focus.

"It's something that our students are very passionate about, something that we talk a lot about. I'm really proud of them," she said.

To find stories, students and teachers try to listen for interesting ideas. Students are also assigned beats.

Once a list of ideas is narrowed down, the students either choose, or are assigned, stories to work on individually, or in small teams.

Brenton Nash, 13, said he was assigned his front-page story on how the changes in the school choice plan would affect John Hopkins. Brenton said he spent a lot of time on the story.

"It took me the whole month to work on. It was very complicated. I came in early, I stayed late and I even came in during lunch," he said.

Brenton said his teachers helped him compile questions to ask his sources and gave him tips to improve the final draft. "They wanted me to put it more in news form and to elaborate on some details," Brenton said.

The eighth-grader interviewed superintendent Clayton Wilcox and School Board members Mary Brown and Mary Russell. Brenton's co-author, Linda Nhon, helped with editing and research, Brenton said.

Kacy Yerger, 11, said students use the Internet to help find phone numbers or to look at Web sites related to their stories. Kacy said she has learned a lot about finding story ideas and news-gathering techniques.

"We're learning about how to form stories and all of the questions you can ask people, and we're learning (story) angles," she said.

Butkus said the program is set up much like a traditional newsroom to give students an experience that mirrors a professional journalism environment. At the beginning of the school year, students apply for positions in advertising, reporting and photography. Butkus said the children have the opportunity to switch to a different department in order to learn about the media industry.

"If a kid really loves reporting, I'm not going to make them switch, but i'm encouraging them to try as many things as they can," she said.

Though the children have helped edit and write headlines for previous editions, Butkus said she is looking to expand student roles to include copy editors and business managers, in keeping with the traditional structure of a working newspaper. One long-term goal is to create a Web site, Butkus said. "We know that's the direction everyone is moving and the way our students think, so that's definitely a goal of ours," she said.

For the issue released Thursday, Taylor LaPuma, 12, wrote a front-page story on Myspace.com, an interactive Web site that invites users to create personalized pages where they can create profiles, upload photos and post messages. The seventh-grader interviewed students and a teacher whose son has a Myspace page, which are widely used by teenagers. Her story gained relevance in late December when a former John Hopkins teacher was arrested on charges of computer pornography, allegedly through Myspace.

"Most of the kids were pretty interested (in this story) because everybody pretty much knew him and mostly everybody here has Myspace. We found out (about the charges) while I was writing my story, and we thought it related because of Myspace," Taylor said.

This week, Butkus, Serne and their students will begin planning their next edition.

The program, which started in 2004, won the top prize in the middle school category of the National Student Publishing Awards, sponsored by Time and Time for Kids magazines last year. JHop Times is part of an intensive journalism program developed in partnership with the St. Petersburg Times, which provides staffer resources and funding for the program.

[Last modified January 25, 2006, 00:55:16]