Magazines with class part two

What I've learned from a school magazine project

Updated: 12th August 2012

Well, I've been going through a truly interesting and thoroughly enjoyable learning curve since I last blogged on this subject.

And what has topped it all off for me is the surprising ease this potentially challenging project has been thus far.

Here's what I learned from issue #1.

Full colour publications are the only way to go. They stand out a mile on notice boards and I could see this from the numbers of students gathered around the publication during the first week of its arrival.

They also stand up remarkably well to the moist conditions of rainy season as long as they're not too exposed.

Dog-eared copies are a good sign that the magazine is being read school-wide.

Missing copies are not signs of anything negative. Quite the opposite; they're a sign of popularity: meaning that one should replace them as quickly as possible.

My five groups are still new to this but their eyes lit up when they saw the first issue and I could see that it gave them a sense of civic pride. As it should have done!

At this embryonic stage, I still have to make myself extremely clear about what formats I want content handed to me in, and especially when.

Here's what I'm going to do with issue #2.

I cautioned students that I only wanted to see positive content. They looked at me gone out. One particularly strong speaker told me that she refused to go and waste her time reviewing shops that are of no interest to her!

The group that had the most difficult task, relating a Thai joke in English, came up with by far the best response: draw it in a comic book format.

I helped them to correct grammar and spelling and made sure that all nine of them could verbally relate the joke to me, first of all supported and then unsupported.

I'm so pleased with and proud of them, that I'm going to dedicate the entire next issue to their brilliant contribution.

And that means that I now already have more than enough content at my disposal for issue #3 (from the contributions of the other four groups).

Right, I'm off for a walk in the park. See you in part 3.

Comments

Thanks, Philip.

I have access to a colour printer in my office.

After totting up where the most visible noticeboards were, I initially ran off 15 copies of a 3-sheeter.

I had to replenish 5 sites during the first week.

Footnote.

This project is excellent for special learning groups. (Something I believe the MoE is keen to increase at the M4 to 6 levels... I have to take great care of an objectives-based record system for this class, for example).

Would I introduce this in to my mainstream classes?

Not in a million years! (I've got 14 classes that average about 40 students per class and I want to maintain the focus purely on conversation).

By Geoff Richards, Isaan (13th August 2012)

Sounds like it's going well Geoff. Well done to you sir!
Just out of interest, does producing it as a full-color magazine make it prohibitively expensive if you needed to produce a large quantity. Or can you cove the costs with a small cover charge?

By philip, (13th August 2012)