After six days of intensive writing coaching at the Arizona Interscholastic Press Association Summer Workshop, students collaborated to create a newspaper that focused on topics relevant to high school students.

Journalism workshop a hit
with advisers, students alike

Journalism advisers and students from all over the state gathered at NAU this summer to pen a great success.

The 48th annual Arizona Interscholastic Press Association Summer Workshop brought journalists—beginners and veterans—to the School of Communication to give them a chance to improve their skills and work with NAU staff to prepare for the upcoming school year.

The workshop instructs beginners in the basics of communication and provides skill enhancement for journalism veterans.

"The workshop is an excellent opportunity for us to show off our Mountain Campus generally and our School of Communication specifically," said communication professor Martin Sommerness. "I like to think that the workshop isn't just about recruiting students into journalism or photography or the like; rather, I see the workshop as training informed citizens and critical users of our modern mass media."

Fifty-eight students in the workshop and 10 high school publications advisers attended, including the newly hired director of high school programs and outreach for the ASU Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. In addition to Sommerness, the workshop was taught by a staff of 13 faculty members.

With twice the number of attendees this year than last, the workshop gave students the opportunity to take classes in broadcast, digital photography, newspaper and yearbook. Advisers also were able to gain recertification and, for the first time in the history of the workshop, they were offered graduate credit.

After six days of intensive writing coaching, students collaborated to create a workshop newspaper. The newspaper focused on topics relevant to high school students ranging from current events, to dorm life to what NAU has to offer.

"It's the largest newspaper we've created that I can remember," Sommerness said.

Students and teachers had both joint and separate sessions. Days began with a group session and then broke into individual sessions for teachers, editors, news writers, photographers, designers and yearbook staff.

"The workshop helps students decide whether they want to go to college and if they do, it helps them decide which, if any, of the areas in the broad field of communication they will want to chose as a major," Sommerness said.

For almost 60 years the Arizona Interscholastic Press Association has been serving Arizona's student journalists and their advisers. As the only independent, statewide, scholastic journalism organization for teachers and advisers, it encourages all schools, regardless of size or number of publications, to join the organization.