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.
Mall crawling is an inexpensive means to collect ideas for yearbooks
Teens are familiar with their local mall — the location of their favorite stores, favorite eating spots and the best places to hang with their friends.
Mimi’s scream was almost primal. “I hate headlines!” rang out louder than OutKast from the back room. And yet, despite such agony, I knew I was winning.
After 14 years at a Texas high school, I spent my first year at Shawnee Mission East High School, Prairie Village, Kan., asking students to polish, refine and redo. I was evil incarnate.
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.
The writer, Abby, told me they were like a family — sisters, really. But for some reason, I could not imagine a home with the closet space to accommodate the 32 members of the drill team. And there was another thing — something hard to place, like a melody to a familiar song but with slightly new wording.
Had I heard this story before?
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.
Walsworth congratulates the students from Walsworth schools who have won awards in the National Scholastic Press Association’s Picture of the Year and Design of the Year contests.
I suffered from deadline dread my first year as adviser of The Spinnaker at Laney High School. Despite those early days when pages were turned in the day of shipping for the mad dash to the plant, I have survived and learned from my mistakes. While I still have a lot to learn about yearbook publishing, I have come to understand that deadlines are a necessary evil.
Veteran advisers look back at their first year or two and wish someone had warned them about what can go wrong. Here are some of the more common issues that advisers face, and tips for avoiding or resolving them. We tried to come up with a list of the Top Ten Pitfalls to Avoid, but we can’t count, so here Mike Frazier’s article with help from advisers Renae Goldie, Amy Morgan and Danielle Bradley, and yearbook representative Karen Ray.