Right now there are 62 elementary students running around Clarkston with a whole new way to torment their parents ? newsprint tattoos.
On May 25, I headed over to Springfield Plains Elementary for Festival Day. This year’s theme was communication and your very own local editor was given the opportunity to shape the minds of some of Clarkston’s brightest, including teaching them how to get a newsprint tattoo.
What is a newsprint tattoo? Simple, a tattoo you can put on your skin from newsprint. Here, try ? moisten your thumb, pick a small face, object or group of words, press down, hold and lift. Voila, newsprint tattoo.
Okay, seriously now, the students did learn a little bit about newspapers and communication during my workshops.
To begin, we discussed the role of a community newspaper, what reporters do and why newspapers contain advertising. We talked about layout, stories and pictures.
Then we really got down to business, literally. In each workshop, I selected a volunteer reporter and photographer. The students in the workshop then went through the ‘newspaper? process step by step.
Their goal ? to communicate to area residents who participated in my workshops while learning about being a reporter for a newspaper.
First, my volunteer photographer set up the students in each workshop for a picture. The kids learned about how much time this takes (especially when doing a sports team such as football) and how difficult grouping those in the photo can be.
Second, the student photographer then took the picture themselves with my digital camera. Let me take a moment to give my youngest Clarkston News photographers one more thank you: Brooke Henney, Devon Ducharme, Edward DeWitt, James Mann, Haley Maloney and James Russell.
Third, my volunteer reporters then gathered everyone’s names in order. The students learned about reporter’s courtesy and to always double check the spelling of someone’s name. They also learned that not everyone likes to be in the newspaper or be cooperative.
Thanks to all my guest reporters: Isaac Mansour, Sarah McCallum, Brendan Greenlee, Karoline Holsbeke, Gage Cleaver and Elisabeth Wolf.
After collecting the names, the young journalists assisted me in laying out an actual picture page for this week’s edition. They wrote the headline, the cutlines and decided whose picture would be where.
At the end of each workshop, the kids asked great questions: How long does putting a newspaper together take? Why does ink get on our hands? What is an ad?
Thanks to everyone for a great day!