Power of the Press : 6th-Graders Hone Writing Skills, Build Self-Esteem With School Newspaper

The Foshay Times is published only twice a year and the upcoming issue will have a circulation of just 1,200. But for the sixth-graders who produce it, the newspaper is a very serious undertaking.

As today’s deadline for the March edition approached, conversation inside Room 288 at Foshay Learning Center was so minimal that computer beeps could be clearly heard.

Eleven-year-old Soledad Sandoval, facile with a computer mouse, scanned through her story checking punctuation and spelling. Her topic: Why only a handful of students avail themselves of after-school tutoring. Her conclusion: They think it’s dumb. Her response: That’s ridiculous.

“Students . . . have no excuse to get low grades when we have programs like tutoring,” she wrote.

With assistance from University of Southern California journalism students, the Foshay reporters do not confine themselves to their South-Central campus. They write about gang violence and the dearth of women’s bathrooms in public places, about racism and homelessness.

In the upcoming edition, one student emotionally recounts the stabbing death of her older brother while another recaps the Super Bowl.

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The goal of the elective class is not so much to cover campus news as to motivate students to write. Teacher Mary Lewis finds that the composition skills of the student reporters improve markedly in their other subjects, especially when it comes to self-editing.

But more than that, according to Lewis, the newspaper program helps them believe in themselves: “Once they see their story in print, their self-esteem really goes up.”

The paper began six years ago at nearby Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School as the joint project of Lewis and Jack Langguth, a former New York Times reporter and USC journalism professor. Langguth believed that his students needed more contact with the outside world and Lewis thought producing a newspaper would be a good classroom exercise.

So began the King Chronicles, and then--when Lewis transferred to Foshay last year--the Foshay Times. Although an estimated 20% of school papers have folded for lack of funds in recent years, these papers survive by using existing equipment and staff, and with a minimal school infusion for printing--about $500 an issue.

Each semester, eight USC students visit the schools twice a week to help hone ideas, organize notes and edit stories. In return they receive two units of credit and an appreciation for youthful enthusiasm.

“Some real talent comes out of these kids,” said USC senior Kevin Toomajian as he suggested phrasing approaches to two boys collaborating on a story about endangered species. “For me, this didn’t happen until high school.”

At Foshay, sixth-graders can choose between the paper and more traditional language arts instruction for their one elective outside the basics of science, math, English and history. About half have selected journalism--and for numerous reasons:

Soledad Sandoval wants to inform her fellow students. Gustavo Miranda wants to be famous, at least at Foshay. Jasmine Whittaker just wants to write--and write and write.

“You get to write what you think about things,” she said. “It’s just fun.”

In the March issue, which will be prepared for printing by a USC layout class next week, Jasmine recounts a visit to Foshay by Madeline Kunin, deputy U.S. secretary of education. Although she did not meet Kunin, Jasmine describes how Foshay must have appeared to the official--and she credits one of the USC students with helping her find descriptive words.

The school “reveals old scar tissue from the Los Angeles riots,” Jasmine wrote. “Bars, grills and gates cover every window and door it’s not a place where one expects children to play. But inside the school yard . . . there is an oasis of safety.”

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The paper is distinctly kid-centered in ways as obvious as topic choices and as subtle as story details. In an opinion piece about O.J. Simpson, the writer--who believes Simpson is innocent--speculates about how his children must feel. In a piece on the homeless, a reporter remembers walking Downtown and seeing families with “hungry babies and the kids walking down the street asking for food and clothes.” When two reporters opted to cover the floods, they sent questionnaires to a Malibu sixth-grade class.

Surveys of fellow students are common in the Foshay Times and quotes from adults are minimal, partly because the reporters say they find interviewing big people intimidating and partly because they have little access to them.

But they do not always let adults off the hook. When a reporter set out to document student complaints that school bathrooms were often dirty or locked, she could not get the school custodial staff to comment. So she ended her December issue article by saying, “No one would talk to me. Everyone was too busy.”

“In true expose fashion, they made the point . . . that they had been sloughed off,” Langguth said. “It’s wonderful.”

Then, in an unexpected lesson about the power of the press, students say that within weeks they found that more bathrooms were open and they were cleaner.

As the “bathroomgate” coverage illustrates, there is little or no censorship of the Foshay Times--a concerted attempt to allow the youngsters to feel that the printed pages truly reflect their concerns and interests. The practice is embraced by Principal Howard Lappin.

“It should be real--you can’t worry about controversy,” Lappin said. “They’re doing reading and writing . . . and loving it. Talk about authentic work that has some meaning.”