Charleston, S.C. – The Newspaper Association of America Foundation has received a $225,000 grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to develop an integrated language-arts and journalism curriculum using newspapers for middle-school students. The project will be a combined Newspaper In Education and student journalism program beginning in sixth-grade classes. Special emphasis will be placed on schools whose students are largely low-income or do not speak English as their first language. The announcement was made during the NAA Foundation’s Newspaper In Education Conference, being held May 17-20 at the Francis Marion Hotel in Charleston, S.C.
Newspaper In Education, or NIE, is a cooperative effort between schools and newspapers that promotes the use of newspapers as an educational resource and curriculum tool. The NAA Foundation is the administrative organization for the 950 NIE programs in the United States.
The new program’s goal will be to improve reading scores for poor and non-English speaking students. It also will serve to expose more students to journalism as a possible career and will help all students understand the importance of the First Amendment.
“Newspapers provide teachers and students with a wealth of real-world material that is, by its very nature, fresh and current,” said Margaret Vassilikos, senior vice president of the NAA Foundation. “It reaches young people in a way that traditional methods may not, and studies have shown that NIE programs have a particularly dramatic impact on underprivileged and minority schools. We are very pleased that Knight Foundation recognizes the value of newspapers as a way to broaden the educational experience, increase awareness of journalism as a career and enhance understanding of the First Amendment.”
The curriculum will consist of three sequential units on media literacy, journalism and newspaper production. First, students will learn media literacy skills to help them gain an understanding of the media’s role in modern citizenship and informed decision making. Next, they will learn the craft of journalism including how to gather information, write, edit and evaluate the final product, and discuss the importance of audiences and journalism ethics. In the third unit, they will learn how to produce their own newspaper. They will be acquainted with design and layout concepts, and use available technology to manipulate text, graphics and new media applications to create a finished product.
Development of the curriculum is expected to take six months. It will then be field tested in three newspaper markets with diverse geographic and circulation sizes by three to five teachers in each market for approximately another six months.
“These days, sixth grade is not too early to teach students the role of free-flowing news in working democracies,” said Eric Newton, Knight Foundation’s director of Journalism Initiatives. “No grade is too early to teach media literacy.”
The NAA program builds on Knight’s $12 million High School Initiative to engage students in journalism and in understanding their First Amendment protections. Knight recently unveiled the results of a national research project, the largest of its kind, gauging high school students’ attitudes toward the First Amendment. The survey found that most of America’s high school students either don’t know how they feel about the First Amendment or admit they take it for granted.
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation promotes excellence in journalism worldwide and invests in the vitality of 26 U.S. communities.
The NAA Foundation is the educational and charitable arm of NAA. Founded in 1961, the Foundation was established to advance informed and intelligent media use by all citizens, especially young people, and to encourage them to value their right to a free and unfettered press. The Foundation is dedicated to developing tomorrow’s readers by encouraging them to acquire and value information from newspapers and other media. Information about the Foundation and its programs may be found at www.naafoundation.org.