There are many ways to tell a story, but to entice readers to linger over the yearbook copy, the best writers follow basic story-telling rules. Most of those rules revolve around the stories of the people in the school. The events may not change year to year, but the people do, and how they participate in and react to those events makes each year unique. Consider these basic points ofcopy writing to tell the story of those people.
Whether we have a pleasant or a horrible experience creating a yearbook is not influenced by our quality of layouts or photographs. Most of us can even accept it and carry on if our page software occasionally does not behave. What really makes you despise or love this whole process is how organized you are.
High school yearbooks and newspapers provide students with real-world training and an opportunity to create and showcase their work. Despite these similarities, viewpoints on the roles for the yearbook and the newspaper are usually vastly different. However, with each passing year, the line of distinction seems to be getting blurry.
It is hard to give up control. Even after three years as a yearbook adviser, I find it hard to know when to step in and when to let the staff make mistakes for the sake of learning from them.
You may be overlooking a vast and multi-talented resource for your yearbook program: parents. Parents love their children, want them to succeed and want to help when they can. If you show them the value of your program, and explain how it works in a way they can support it, your program will benefit.
Like the old saying “you can’t be too rich,” there is no such thing as being too organized. We all talk about it. But how many of us really take the steps to become organized?
SO, YOU’RE THE ADVISER FOR A MIDDLE SCHOOL YEARBOOK. THE HARDWARE AND THE SOFTWARE MAY BE IDENTICAL TO WHAT YOUR COMPATRIOTS ARE USING AT HOME TOWN HIGH SCHOOL, BUT YOU KNOW THE STUDENTS ENROLLED IN THAT HIGH SCHOOL PROGRAM DOWN THE STREET OR ACROSS TOWN ARE DRAMATICALLY DIFFERENT FROM THE 11- TO 15-YEAR-OLDS POPULATING YOUR MIDDLE OR JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL CLASS.
Brainstorm. Any word with “storm” in it must be fairly intense. When you brainstorm for story ideas, dozens of thoughts are going through your mind at once. You may be using your brain, but brainstorming can be a gut-wrenching process. However, there are ways to capitalize on the process to make it more useful. Brainstorming for story ideas is a year-round activity for the yearbook staffs at three high schools where the advisers have tried-and-true methods for helping their students through the process.
Almost eight decades after she worked on the first yearbook staff at St. Peter’s High School, G.G. Wehinger made her first trip back to her alma mater last spring when she visited the 2001-2002 Petrarchan yearbook staff.
Deb Buttleman Malcolm expects her students to be able to do more than reading, writing and editing when they graduate from her program — she expects them to be culturally literate.
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