Last week I promised that the cargo would not change with the crew. This week I want to add something to the hold.
Starting this month, The Argosy runs a Newspaper in Education program for elementary and middle school students. We are turning our own articles into workbooks that students fill out, and every one of them is free.
How It Works
The program runs online, at whatever pace suits the reader. A teacher or parent downloads an article and its worksheet, and the student uses them to write a report and practice the habit this paper cares about most: reading something closely and thinking it through.
Every worksheet is built from one of our editors' own articles, and our editors donate their time to the program. Each editor's worksheets have their own style, which means a psychology lesson and a sustainability lesson will not feel alike. We think that is a feature. Real newsrooms do not sound like one person either.
Why a Student Paper
The founders built this newsroom on a simple idea: that students can do serious work if someone takes them seriously first. Every writer on this masthead learned to pitch, revise, and source by doing it, with an editor across the table. Newspaper in Education is that same table, set for younger readers, at no cost to anyone who sits down.
It is also the project I most want this term to be remembered for. I run it with our senior editors, and we are now looking for our first partner schools. If you teach, or know a classroom that would want in, write to us at editors@theargosy.org. The worksheets, and updates as the program grows, live on our Newspaper in Education page.
New table, same ship, and a few more hands on deck.
Ethan Yang is the second Editor-in-Chief of The Argosy.
