Beacon Assignment Blog

Dear Beacon writers and editors, please review this blog regularly to check in on assignment and deadlines.  I will be speaking with Claire Bentley and other editors to discuss timeline adjustments that may need to be made.  However, this blog is the place to go when you are uncertain as to what deadlines have been created.

Rubric for APRIL WEBSITE ARTICLE REVIEW

YOUR NAME_____________________________ PERIOD _______

NAME OF YOUR APRIL WEB ARTICLE TO BE ASSESSED ________________

Element being evaluated	Unsatisfactory 1	Minimally satisfies criteria 2	Very Good 3	Superior 4
Newsworthiness	Not newsworthy	Minimally newsworthy	Newsworthy	On top of the April Zeitgeist
Visual reviewed	No visual	Poor quality visual	Good visual	Great Visual
Headline Reviewed	No  headline	Minimal headline unclear	Good headline	Catchy headline
300 words	Less than 100 words	101-150 words	Less than 300, more than 150	300 words or more
Appropriate, balanced quotes	No quotes	One quote	Two valid quotes	All 3 quotes appropriate
Grammar/spelling	Poorly written, Numerous grammar mistakes	Some grammar mistakes (3-5)	(1-3) Grammar Mistakes	No grammar mistakes, well written
Your Score				/24

Note: Please staple a hard copy of your APRIL web article on this page and grade yourself.  I will then grade your APRIL web article on this as well.

Please post your Bacon Stories online by April 4th.

ALSO, VERY IMPORTANT.  PLEASE THOROUGHLY REVIEW BACON.  All articles.  SEE BELOW.

Please include SPECIFIC likes and dislikes.  Specific articles etc. and why you liked or didn't like.   Grammar is one element, consider content and other attributes, illustrations, pictures, headlines, length, quotes.  Also check for unnecessary "white" in the paper.  Consider how can we avoid in the future.

Also, please review TAFT TODAY on your blog by April 6th.

Please include SPECIFIC likes and dislikes.  Specific articles etc. and why you liked or didn't like.   Grammar is one element, consider content and other attributes, illustrations, pictures, headlines, length, quotes.

Please have a picture (preferably taken by you) to go along with your story.  I would like you to review your story and edit one last time, then post on the website by Friday, February 26th.  We will TWEET out a link to your story on Friday using the Beacon Twitter account.  Think of people who might be interested in your story and then let's tweet them a link to it on Friday.

You should review Jones Newspaper by February 28th on your blog.  The TAFT Newspaper by March 6th on your blog.

Hancock Newspaper review due by March 13th.

First Draft of Bacon article due Wednesday, March 16th.  Show me what you have before then  if possible.



I would like you to write a 300 word profile on someone in this school.  Please write 20 questions you might ask the person you plan to profile.  The idea is to ask both banal and interesting questions.  The banal to learn the background, the interesting questions to draw out something interesting about the person.

February website article EDITED and POSTED by February 1st.  Give me a HARD COPY of your February article on February 1st.  Your article will be graded on 1) proper grammar and 2) AP style 3) Include quotes in your stories and if applicable, there should be a balance (point and counterpoint) to your article.  Your articles should be EDITED by whomever you trust.  I AM NOT YOUR EDITOR.  I will evaluate your articles based on the criteria articulated.  Remember beginning, middle and end to your articles.

Please REVIEW Hancock Signature ON YOUR BLOG BY MARCH 13th  (It's an electronic version, emailed to you February 2nd)

Next GRADED: Article of 300 words on an INDIVIDUAL who has an association with WY.  (Student, teacher, administrator,  parent of a student?  Alumnus?)  First draft (HARD COPY) Due Friday at 3:15.  DO NOT POST ON BLOG OR EMAIL TO ME.  Need to see:  Who you are interviewing, some progress on the article.  Also, we will ultimately need a picture and a good headline to go with the story.    Second drafts due Tuesday, March 8th HARD COPY TO ME MARCH 8th. PICTURE OR VIDEO of SUBJECT DUE MARCH 11th)  Final drafts due, posted on Website and on Blog, March 11th.  HARD COPY TO ME, March 11th.  NOTE: Make sure you have posted who you are writing about on the group BEACON Google DOC.  I do not want two people writing about the same person.  ATTACH THE STANDARD RUBRIC SHEET to each draft.  Have a colleague fill out the Rubric sheet for the first and second draft.  I will fill out the final draft rubric sheet (but you must attach the form to it.)

Article on Bowie or MLK or other topic of choice due to me hard copy by January 18.

Review of Glenbard North paper due by December 18th

Correction on the Blog  of the Girls win State article Due December 18th

Review of Our December issue due December 14th

Ideas for next issue due on Blogs by December 14th.

Website editing:  All showcase articles should be December articles

Correction of Girls Win State should be in the showcase Immediately.


Everyone should have an article on the Beacon website for NOVEMBER. (By the end of November, but really, the beginning of November. )

Everyone should have an article on the Beacon Website for DECEMBER by DECEMBER1st.  Put your Beacon article on the site if necessary, and then update if possible.)

I have asked Maia Sanders from 2nd Period to coordinate that class's updates.  I will ask someone from 8th to coordinate 8th period Website updates.)

The goal of the class is to ensure that the Beacon Website has CURRENT articles on it.  This means, we should have articles DATED in the SAME MONTH as the CURRENT MONTH.  DECEMBER lead articles should run through DECEMBER and then NEW ARTICLES for JANUARY.

I also intend to have students submit some of their articles to CNNiREPORT if and when they have wider interest beyond the WY community.  Reports on events in Chicago are such CNNiReports.

Deadline #1 FINAL DRAFTS of all stories going into the Beacon is December 1st.

Deadline # 2 Beacon is sent to printer on December 4th.

Deadline #3 Beacon is printed and delivered to WY on December 8th.

Deadline #4 Beacon is distributed to classrooms in WY December 9th

Deadline #5 Beacon is mailed out to all out to reciprocal newspapers December 11th.

I would also like us to maintain the Beacon Website so it does not become a COBWEBSITE.

To do this, we need to make sure articles are regularly and routinely updated on the Beacon Website.

Everyone should have a current article (dated in November) on the Beacon website.  Deadline for a NOVEMBER article on the Beacon Website is November 24th.  (You can use a clean, edited version of what you are working on for the December issue.)

Editors, working with Claire, should determine what articles are timely and should be Showcased on the website.  Claire can delegate this responsibility if necessary.  Showcase articles should have upload dates in the same month as is current (e.g.  all showcase articles this month should be posted in November; next month, articles posted should be from December.)

In the beginning, I would like an article from each of you each month posted on the Beacon website.  So, writers and editors should be thinking of something to post on the Beacon in December.

Sports editors should be able to keep up with current Sports each month.  Short reviews of Sport scores or a possible LINK to the WY Sports site that I believe Mr. Cassidy maintains.

Features editors should be able to keep up with a current Feature story each month.

The Showcase section of the Beacon Website should be maintained by the editor in chief or someone or some people to whom she delegates that responsibility.

Everyone should know how to Tweet.  Everyone should tweet out their article when it is posted on the website.  (More about this later, but for now, everyone should know how to use the WYBeacon Twitter account.)

We need to find ways to send traffic to our Beacon Website.  This means timely articles and LINKS to other publications.  For example, we should link Luke Zarzicki's Mash article to our website.  The Tribune won't mind because we are putting a link on our page to the Mash website.  

Everyone should be thinking about creating content that can be sent out over various mediums.

My goal is to have each of you submit a piece to CNNiReport before the end of the school year.

Editors should try and make sure each writer has a piece in the printed Beacon.  To do this, it may be necessary to write shorter versions of a story for the printed paper, and a longer version for the website.  We can send people from the newspaper to the Beacon website if this happens.  (For example, we write: "For more on this story, please visit www.WYBeacon.org. at the end of each truncated version of a story.

Let's try and get pics of students on the WY Beacon website to help drive traffic to the site.

We will also do promotions (give aways) that should help.  We all need to help doing this.

Rubric for BACON REVIEW

YOUR NAME_____________________________ PERIOD _______

DATE DUE OF THE ASSIGNMENT ________________

Element being evaluated	Unsatisfactory 1	Minimally satisfies criteria 2	Very Good 3	Superior 4
ALL Specific Articles Reviewed	None fully reviewed	Some but less than half fully reviewed	Most (more than 80%) Fully reviewed	All Articles fully reviewed
Pictures reviewed	Pictures not reviewed	Some but less than half identified	Most but not all problems identified	All picture problems identified
Headlines Reviewed	No  headline review	Minimal review of headlines	Some but not all Headline issues addressed	All Headline issues addressed
“White Spaces” identified	Not identified	1 or 2   identified	Most but not all identified	All white spaces identified
Review of most and least interesting stories	No perspective given	Limited perspective given	Least and most identified, not fully explained	Fully identified and explained
Grammar/spelling	Poor Grammar Not noted	Some errors noted (4-7) missed	Most but not all (1-3) missed	All grammar errors noted

Note: This information is available on the shared Beacon Assignment Blog.