Evening class becomes holy crusade.* Editorial writing class gets rough when your student thinks H. Ross Perot H. Ross Perot (born June 27, 1930) is an American businessman from Texas, who is best known for seeking the office of President of the United States in 1992 and 1996. Perot founded Electronic Data Systems (EDS) in 1962 and later sold the company to General Motors and founded Perot is a French chef. I didn't have unrealistically high expectations about the quality of work I'd be grading when I signed up recently to teach an editorial writing class at Webster State University. But I wasn't prepared to struggle teaching current events like a remedial math instructor teaching basic addition and subtraction subtraction, fundamental operation of arithmetic; the inverse of addition. If a and b are real numbers (see number), then the number a−b is that number (called the difference) which when added to b (the subtractor) equals . Reality hit me like a cold pool off a diving A DIV Associate of Divinity board when I handed out a quiz on the first day. The questions weren't hard. They all concerned people and things that had been in the news the previous week. But the answers I received back were astounding a·stound tr.v. a·stound·ed, a·stound·ing, a·stounds To astonish and bewilder. See Synonyms at surprise. [From Middle English astoned, past participle of astonen, . I had asked them to identify H. Ross Perot. One student answered, "A French chef." Others either tried their best to be clever or funny as they made up answers to these and other questions, while some merely left the page blank. Some of these students were journalism majors, and some took the course as an elective for a related major. I saw little difference between the two. No interest in current events To remedy this problem, I required them to buy newspaper and magazine subscriptions along with the textbook, and I asked them to watch a television newscast newscast Radio or television broadcast of news events. News gathering and broadcasting by the radio networks began in the mid-1930s and increased significantly during World War II. The television newscast began in 1948 with 15-minute programs that resembled movie newsreels. once a day. One student dropped the course after a week, telling me she had no interest in current events and would be unable to fulfill the assignments. Assuming this bunch is not too atypical atypical /atyp·i·cal/ (-i-k'l) irregular; not conformable to the type; in microbiology, applied specifically to strains of unusual type. a·typ·i·cal adj. of college-aged students, this lack of interest in the news becomes more than just a lamentable la·men·ta·ble adj. Inspiring or deserving of lament or regret; deplorable or pitiable. See Synonyms at pathetic. lam  en·ta·bly adv. condition. It concerns the future of our profession, as well as society.
This makes the need for hands-on involvement in education important for
any editorial writer.
Holy crusade My decision to teach an evening class for a little extra money soon turned into a holy crusade to rescue the future of 17 bright but unenlightened young people. For weeks I labored to show everyone in the room that while they have opinions, they need to be empowered with information so they can examine those opinions critically and place them in a meaningful context with the world around them. Then they can begin the struggle of articulating their thoughts in writing. The work paid off. As the semester wore on, class discussions gradually became livelier and opinions more cogent COGENT - COmpiler and GENeralized Translator . The writing they produced was about as I had expected. Most of them struggled with words as if they were right-handers trying to bat with their left hands. But that wasn't as important to me as knowing some of them may have kept their newspaper subscriptions current after the semester ended. Not everyone will learn how to write masterful editorials, but they can learn how to enjoy reading them and reacting to them. That alone is reason enough for any editorial writer to take the time to teach a class - a sobering but stimulating brush with the next generation of newspaper readers. NCEW NCEW National Conference of Editorial Writers member Jay Evensen is the editorial page editor of the Deseret News in Salt Lake City. |
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