Recently, students in French VIH and Spanish VIH participated in a summative assessment where they had the opportunity to create their own newspaper, both in print and online. This project incorporated practical application of the language within the form of writing, speaking, listening, and reading others articles.

In order to prepare for the project, students from the journalism class shared information with the students. Seniors Bella Podgorski and Kita Karna prepared a presentation that taught the language students about the ideals and principles that make an engaging layout as well as the fundamentals of journalistic writing.

“I enjoyed going in and talking to the French and Spanish students about the important aspects of a newspaper. I think it’s a great project that gives students a fun opportunity to write,” Podgorski said.

World language teacher Tom Mcginnis helped students prepare for the newspaper.

“Students presented their newspaper orally and gave a summary of their article to the rest of the class. The summative incorporated learning targets of writing, speaking, and listening. Students also addressed the learning target of reading by peer editing articles of their newspaper staff,” Mcginnis said.

The class was divided into two groups, and each group created a newspaper. Students contributed articles to the paper after choosing a topic of interest such as current events, sports, advice, and arts and entertainment.

Students were able to take advantage of the opportunity to write in a format similar to a newspaper and utilize their knowledge of the language.

“The project was really cool because we had been studying news and newspapers this past quarter, and we got to see what it actually takes to make a newspaper. It was also nice to be able to choose a topic of interest and write about it without any restrictions,” senior Megan Caccamo said.

The newspapers were then shared with the AP French class for the French students and were shared with various other classes for Spanish students, as they voted on the best newspaper.

“I think it was a fun and interesting way to experiment with writing and it was a great way to see how much effort goes into the printing of a newspaper,” senior Caroline Summa said.