| Recommend |
| Comment |
| Email this article |
| Print this article |
| Get news alerts |
| RSS Feeds |
 Share
|
Digg
Mixx
Linked In
Facebook
Twitter
Delicious
A group of eight students sits around a table in the Amagansett School library. They chitchat as they pull out after-school snacks, buckle down and get serious. It’s time for the news, and this is the dedicated group who report it.
Marisa, in the sixth grade, lost a tooth; Richey and Quinn just returned from a trip to Old Town, North Carolina; and the health tip of the day: Cough into your sleeve, not your hand, says the school nurse. These are just a few of the items on the day’s list.
For the second year, students at Amagansett are running their own news show—doing everything from gathering information and conducting interviews to shooting and editing their video footage. The students, who are in the second to fourth grades, cover everything from health, which is presented by Maya Poblete, to sports by Richey Brew and even have a commercial break by Devon Merritt. On Fridays, the show is broadcast to the rest of the school.
Officially, the group meets for an hour after school on Wednesdays to practice self-written scripts and film the episode on a small, digital Flip camera. But a journalist’s work is never done, said Finn Li, who covers school news. On his lunch breaks and during recess, Finn said he scours the halls and playground with a clipboard searching for the latest among students and staff. He reports on school trips, lost teeth and upcoming events.
A news show veteran from the club’s first year, Finn said he learned early on an important lesson of being a public figure. To stand out, he needed a signature, so before each show, Finn changes into a cream and brown striped blazer.
“It gives me that, ‘Yeah, I’m a newsman’ kind of look,” he said.
On Thursdays, Grace Myer edits the video with one of the group’s advisors, Janine Balnis, the school’s social worker, using iMovie on a set of Mac computers the school purchased last year.
Ms. Balnis said at first she and her co-advisor, Robyn Mott, a teacher’s assistant at the school, would find items for the students to report but by the third week, most of the kids were finding their own news. She said being a part of the news show helps the students develop a range of communication and technology skills.
“They’re so creative. Each week they want to try something else,” she said, like filming the weather outside and the wash-your-hands health tip at a sink.
Ms. Mott added that she enjoys seeing the students grow socially throughout the experience. She said she’s seen many of the kids who were “robot-readers” at first become confident in front of the camera.
“It’s a great outlet for kids who are not into sports,” she said.
Every eight to 10 weeks, the students get to choose a new after-school activity and the news show is just one of their many choices, explained Aurora Chapman, who waxed poetic about the difficult decision-making process and how glad she is that she chose the news show.
This week, the students wanted to do the book review as an on-camera interview between Aurora Chapman and Grace.
As the rest of the participants sat around the circular rug in the library where each student takes turns shooting his or her portion of the news show, they watched the girls fumble over questions and answers.
“Can I give a suggestion?” asked Lucy Emptage from the back of the room, where she was working on her homework. “Maybe you should save the end of the book for the readers to find out.”
“Okie Dokie,” said Aurora and she shrugged.
“In a newscast, there’s a lot of errors,” said Finn. But the students have learned to give and receive constructive criticism well and the girls went on to a perfect take. Even when there are mistakes, Grace and her co-editor, Samantha Merritt, assured their classmates they could be edited out in iMovie.
Add a comment