Campbell Students Take a Turn as Journalists

By Mary Perry

A creative, dedicated group of Campbell Middle School students will see their words in print for the first time on Wednesday night as they show off the Campbell Chronicle, the newspaper they wrote as part of their journalism apprenticeship at the Citizen Schools program at the school.  

It has been my privilege over the last few months to act as a Citizen Teacher for the “Extra! Extra!” apprenticeship, one of several after school activities that are part of the Citizen Schools program. As I told the students when we started, the first time I wrote for a student newspaper was in 6th grade.  And here I am, several decades later, still earning my living as a writer. The chance to volunteer at Citizen Schools, and share some of what I’ve learned with a new generation of young people, has been a really great experience.

The students themselves have gone from being really nervous about the whole idea of “writing articles” to producing work they can really be proud of.  They chose their topics and then had to pitch their ideas to me. They did the research, typed up their first drafts, and then had to go through the editing process to get to their finished articles. 

To give them the recognition and the audience they deserve, I’m going to be posting their articles on this Campbell Patch blog over the next couple weeks. Stay tuned!