More Ways to Say it With Sidebars

Updated by Walsworth Yearbooks

How do you put more information in a spread in an eye-pleasing, easy-to-read format that will entice students to read it?

There are lots of ways to be informative using mods and sidebars. Pie charts, bar graphs, quotes, polls, and lists are all ways to convey information. The key is to use them to impart information that is important to the students. A bar graph for a survey question on whether students were happy the football team won the homecoming game does not make for compelling reading.

Let’s take a look at some ideas:

Subjects for top 5 lists

1. Five favorite classes, as voted on by the seniors
2. Funniest events of the school year
3. Five reasons your principal is the best
4. Five classes with the smallest number of students in them
5. The five most popular clothing trends
6. The top five activities students did over the summer
7. The ways math is used in other classes, or the way any skill taught in one class is used in another

Pie chart slices

1. What students spend their money on each month
2. For students who pack their lunch, what are the most popular items to eat? What are the most popular school lunch items?
3. Students’ favorite restaurants
4. Number of hours per day or week students use computers, cell phones and TVs
5. How do students pay for their cars (savings, loan from institutions, loan from parents, the car was given to them)

Bar graph topics

1. The amount of money spent to run the building (the monthly water bill, the monthly electricity bill, amount spent on sports equipment for gym class, annual repair/upkeep bill for sewing machines, annual cost of books, annual cost of furniture, annual hardware and software costs)
2. What is your curfew?
3. What non-school-related items do you carry in your backpack?
4. Student membership in school activities

Polls/survey questions for students – ask why and use the quotes

1. Have you ever taken money out of your parents’ wallets without asking first?
2. If you did not go to the homecoming dance or prom, what did you do instead?
3. What was your favorite book that you had to read for English?
4. If you could be one of the teachers for a day, who would it be?
5. What was the most important thing you learned from a high school teacher?
6. What is the number of 18-year-old students in your school and how many of them voted in November?

Find out fast facts about your school

1. Number of student cars in the parking lot
2. Square yardage of student parking lot space vs. teacher lot space
3. Number of lockers in the school, including the gym
4. Types of trips taken by clubs and organizations for groups such as the debate team, yearbook, newspaper, National Honor Society, student government
5. Amount of money plugged into the vending machines at school each month
6. Hours to prepare for a debate vs. the length of a debate
7. Number of hours of practice before and during the season of any sport vs. actual game time
8. Number of hours of practice for orchestra and band vs. amount of performance time during the year
9. How much money was raised by the various school fund-raisers