Mr. Burd

Mr. Burd

I, Mr. Burd, teach a class titled Journalism. This course is designed for anyone who likes to write or anyone who thinks he/she might like to write. I have a degree in philosophy, which may or may not qualify me as someone who likes to write, but heaven knows I wrote ceaselessly in college. I think good readers make good writers; that is, people who enjoy reading often enjoy writing. A few years ago, when I was teaching a marketing class at Willow Canyon HS in Surprise, I asked the class of 30 junior & senior students how many had read a book in the past year. The response: one. One student had read one book in the past year. That’s sad. I took the time to read the class a book—aloud; in class; on marketing.

This past summer, I read Stephen King’s acclaimed book, On Writing. In his book, Mr. King said that, although he is not a very fast reader, he manages to read 70 or 80 books a year. Now 70 or 80 books a year is not necessarily the number a good writer needs to read, but certainly the number should be more than zero. The journalism course we have at WHS is aimed at newspaper journalism the first year, with the intention of adding other-media journalism—including broadcast, telecast, web-cast, and pod-cast journalism—the second year.

Our friends at The Wickenburg Sun have been so kind as to welcome our attempts at high school journalism to be included as an insert in their newspaper. We hope to be able to do this on a monthly basis. The journalism class is set up much like a newspaper staff; we have standard positions such as editors, feature writers, staff writers, hard news writers, sports editors, photo editors, beat reporters, etcetera. Deadlines are set in place by the editor, and stories are either self-selected and approved, or assigned by the editor. The students do interviews, attend school events, write poems, answer advice questions, create stories, and have fun with the writing process.

Since 2008-09 is the first year for this course at WHS, everyone involved is experiencing a pronounced learning curve—including this teacher. Every student in the class—as well as some outside the class—contributes to the overall end-product: the school newspaper, The Wrangler Gazette. And, we all bear patiently with each others’ limited experience with the world of journalism. Our hope is that the students and readers of WHS will be equally patient with all of us as we struggle to bring the current issues that affect our campus to their attention.