Elkhart Truth Provides Hands-on Learning

Grade 8 Language Arts students produced a front page of the Elkhart Truth and finished their journalism unit with a field trip to The Truth to see and learn about how a newspaper is produced.

On their field trip, students met with two reporters who had recently collaborated on a series of articles on meth labs in Elkhart County. Students learned how they gathered information, worked with others, decided what was important to the story, considered ethical issues, and then saw how their work culminated in newspaper articles and in online story and video. They also saw how the printing process works—the use of computers, the machines that print and collate—and learned about the import role of advertising in the newspaper business. In the photo, Truth Pubisher Brandon Erlacher shows students a tin plate used in that day's printing.

Prior to their onsite trip, Erlacher and several of his staff came to Bethany for three sessions to help students learn about and produce a newspaper. In one session students learned about journalism and media in general, ethics in journalism, and the future of journalism. A news reporter and photographer also shared about their careers in journalism and photojournalism, and Food Editor Marshall King shared stories from his current role as well as a street reporter earlier in his career.

In one hands-on project, Truth staff helped students think of story ideas they could write for a one-page newspaper. Students divided into four groups with each group working on a different story. They interviewed Bethany teachers and students, took pictures, and wrote their articles. The Truth’s managing editor looked over their work and gave them feedback from an editor’s standpoint. Then the Truth printed a special front page of the Truth with their stories and photos.

In an assignment on ethics in journalism, the Truth staff had students discuss whether and how they would report a tagging of Bethany from a known violent Goshen gang (thankfully a made-up problem). Students then wrote how they would best disseminate information to the rest of the student body in light of all of the possible modes of media that are available today.

Linda Hochstetler, who was teaching the class while Language Arts teacher Evie Nafziger was on medical leave, was thrilled with the job that the Truth staff, especially Brandon Erlacher, did in planning and presenting. She says, “Mr. Erlacher and his staff were very professional and kind. They all obviously loved their profession and were very good at it. Their enthusiasm helped create excitement and interest in the topic for the students.”