So you want to be a journalist?

Tim Schlosser, a teacher at Southeast Middle School, writes:

(Mike Fricano, left, talks with Elizabeth Gramillo and Joshua Valencia, two of Tim Schlosser's students.)

Mike Fricano, one-time newspaper reporter and current editor of L.A. Youth, visited my journalism class last week. The kids found him high-energy and engaging. He spent most of the period regaling them with stories about life as a reporter. He alluded to “hot-headed” battles with editors, described the sometimes tedious world of day-to-day reporting work, and ruminated on the bleak future of newspaper journalism. 

He also gave practical advice. “What do you do during an interview if the person is talking too fast?” he asked. The students gave one another blank looks, then started shooting in the dark: “Record it?”  “Write faster?” “Listen better?” Mike paced up and down the room with a wry smile on his face, and it was obvious why he now works with kids. “No, no, no. Ask them to slow down. There’s nothing wrong with that. Just ask them to slow down.” He also reminded them to make eye contact during interviews -- a skill that none of my aspiring Chungs and Bernsteins have mastered. “You don’t want them to think you’re a weirdo.”   

My life as my alter-ego, “Mr. Schlosser,” continues to be generally satisfying. 

Last week I did my traditional “egg lesson.” It is the only lesson I can think of that I have executed exactly the same way all three years of teaching. I use it to teach figurative language -- metaphors, similes, analogies, etc. It involves giving the students a variety of sensory experiences that they must describe using figurative language. 

It is called the “egg lesson” because it ends with me literally hurling a raw egg at the whiteboard (which I surreptitiously cover with chart paper beforehand), then giving the students a series of prompts they use to describe what they saw and heard. I don’t really know how much instructional value this lesson has, but I know that I like doing it and that students never forget it. 

This year my classroom has an ant problem, and the tiny traces of raw egg that I missed when cleaning up drove the insects into a frenzy. I came to school the morning after to find that my whiteboard tray looked like something from a National Geographic insect special. I asked one of my students to go at the ants with whiteboard cleaner and paper towels, but it didn’t work. I once heard that the ancient Romans believed ants were divine because they spontaneously regenerate. They may have been onto something.         

Comments

[Cristina Gutierrez]

I felt as though the title of the article had almost nothing to do with the article itself. When I read the title it got me interested because I want to go into the field of Journalism when I go on to college but as the article went on, I felt like it got off the subject. From "Last week I did my traditional "egg lesson" to the end, I felt like the article lost its focus a little bit. Although the "egg lesson" was interesting, I would of like to hear more about how I could be a Journalist--as the title of the artcle mentioned.
-cg