Coaching+your+Staff

=Coaching your Staff= You are basically the "teacher" as far as coaching is concerned. Sure, it's easier for you to pass this task on to your adviser, but you'll lose some respect from your staff. Remember, you're producing a STUDENT publication. You're in charge!

Staffing
It's so important to have good leadership. Assign as many different editors as you can, without risking quality, of course. Not only should you break up your newspaper into sections/pages, but assign "editors" or "managers" to take care of advertising, business, photography, etc. You will be surprised at how much pride students take in their roles.

Once leadership has been established, your adviser should be there to ADVISE. Again, you, as an editor, are in charge. Talk to your adviser about lesson plans, and try to take charge when it come time to teach. You want to be the one staffers come to with questions, and that'll happen a lot quicker when you're the one talking to them about deadlines, writing leads, photography, etc.

Mini Lessons
Don't bore your staff members with information they don't need. Wait until the appropriate deadline is approaching and make it meaningful to them. For example, don't teach caption writing on the first day of school. Wait until most students have some photos and they're ready to write.

You should give staff members something to refer to at a later date. For example, provide a handout about caption writing once you've covered your school's guidelines. You might want to keep a digital version on your network computers, or post them online.

Calendar
Whether it's something you hand out or something you post in your classroom, your staff should know exactly when everything's due. Don't surprise them! Give them as much time as possible to plan ahead. Here's a sample yearbook deadline schedule which outlines the ENTIRE year for a spring delivery book.

Model

 * Interviewing
 * Good leads
 * Good captions
 * Consider editing something in front of the entire staff, so they understand how/why changes are made.
 * Good leadership (Don't want your staff to text during class? Don't do it yourself!)
 * Positive thinking
 * //Make your own wiki page for your staff!//