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WRAM, School TV News of Mt. Carmel Elementary in Douglasville, Georgia, is broadcast daily. Linda Crews, Media Specialist at Mt. Carmel, was happy to share information about WRAM in a recent interview. Fifth grade gifted students prepare scripts, interviews, and announcements for the 4-5 minute broadcast each morning. Students are responsible for writing, editing, and presenting ideas for the group to consider. Mrs. Crews is the producer for the news program, oversees the writing, is general manager, and is in charge of other production segments. The media clerk takes over for Mrs. Crews when Linda has to be absent. The WRAM news team is comprised of students as two anchors, a camera person, and a director. Teams change every nine weeks with one or two members who continue on to serve from the previous term but who take on different jobs in the new term. Nine week rotations are done from a pool of candidates who have a desire to be on the WRAM team and are willing to take a training session before each term. Mrs. Crews said students are very eager to be on the WRAM news team.
Each afternoon at 2:00 PM the broadcast team meets with Mrs. Crews to discuss upcoming events, schedule interviews and other news segments for the next day. Scripts are written during that time to be rehearsed the next morning at 7:30 AM. If there is time, the first run-through is video-taped for the team to review. The broadcast is live over closed circuit TV throughout the school at 8:00 AM. Interviews with teachers or other students are conducted live with questions prepared the day before. On Fridays, there is an extended broadcast that includes Ram awards for the week—attendance, PE, Art, Music, etc. Recognition is given to students throughout the school for exemplary behavior or academic achievement.
A typical broadcast for Monday through Thursday will include the Pledge of Allegiance, Moment of Silence, the breakfast and lunch menus, announcements, short interview of a teacher or student, or book review. If there is time, a joke, vocabulary word, or quotation is given, as well. Fridays’ extended broadcasts will usually include the daily broadcast material, as well as the inclusion of staff members who do the awards. Students take their copy from a laptop at eye level that runs a Power Point of their broadcast material to be read aloud. Student teams had experimented with anchors reading from papers on the table, but they weren’t making eye contact enough, so a change was made to reading copy from the laptop. Since Mt. Carmel has been doing School TV News for many years, the entire process is smooth, and all students know what they are supposed to do to remain on the news team.
The WRAM School TV news production serves all in the school. Students talk to students on topics that interest them. Instead of reading announcements, adults can check in late students, or get new students settled before the school day begins. Other adults oversee the production, but students do the writing, editing, and read the copy on their own. This activity successfully promotes student responsibility and school pride in the broadcast. Students are motivated to do their best and work diligently to get accurate material out to the school community. WRAM School TV News has certainly achieved its goals for students at Mt. Carmel Elementary!
Each afternoon at 2:00 PM the broadcast team meets with Mrs. Crews to discuss upcoming events, schedule interviews and other news segments for the next day. Scripts are written during that time to be rehearsed the next morning at 7:30 AM. If there is time, the first run-through is video-taped for the team to review. The broadcast is live over closed circuit TV throughout the school at 8:00 AM. Interviews with teachers or other students are conducted live with questions prepared the day before. On Fridays, there is an extended broadcast that includes Ram awards for the week—attendance, PE, Art, Music, etc. Recognition is given to students throughout the school for exemplary behavior or academic achievement.
A typical broadcast for Monday through Thursday will include the Pledge of Allegiance, Moment of Silence, the breakfast and lunch menus, announcements, short interview of a teacher or student, or book review. If there is time, a joke, vocabulary word, or quotation is given, as well. Fridays’ extended broadcasts will usually include the daily broadcast material, as well as the inclusion of staff members who do the awards. Students take their copy from a laptop at eye level that runs a Power Point of their broadcast material to be read aloud. Student teams had experimented with anchors reading from papers on the table, but they weren’t making eye contact enough, so a change was made to reading copy from the laptop. Since Mt. Carmel has been doing School TV News for many years, the entire process is smooth, and all students know what they are supposed to do to remain on the news team.
The WRAM School TV news production serves all in the school. Students talk to students on topics that interest them. Instead of reading announcements, adults can check in late students, or get new students settled before the school day begins. Other adults oversee the production, but students do the writing, editing, and read the copy on their own. This activity successfully promotes student responsibility and school pride in the broadcast. Students are motivated to do their best and work diligently to get accurate material out to the school community. WRAM School TV News has certainly achieved its goals for students at Mt. Carmel Elementary!
Linda,
This is a great description of a system that appears to be working well for the school you interviewed. Mt. Carmel's announcement format sounds very similar to the format at Villa Rica Elementary with a few exceptions. It does sound like MCE has a good organizational system, and that is essential for things to run smoothly. Sometimes throwing things together last minute is impossible to avoid, but it is my opinion that the announcements is one area that should be well-planned and scripted because everyone in the school is going to see it. Imagine how embarrassing it would be not to have your act together and everyone know about it!
The cool thing about MCE is that they take a considerable amount of time to plan and walk through the whole process, including script writing and pre-recording. We never have time for that at VRE it seems. Moreover, whoever thought of having the copy at eye level running through a laptop was a genius because my main concern when I watch our announcements is that very few students are making good eye contact. Obviously, they do a much better job when they practice beforehand than if they are thrust into the hot seat that morning because someone is absent. When an anchor looks down, not only do you see nothing more than the top of his or her head, but you can't really hear them as they talk down to the desk. I may just have to steal the laptop idea or at least suggest it. I am probably expecting too much from elementary school students, I'm sure. For the time being, I'm happy they are trying and that they get to school early to participate.
The other thing MCE does differently from VRE is that they choose fifth grade gifted students. We pull our news crew from both 4th and 5th grades, invited anyone to apply. We visited classrooms and both students and teachers voted, and we took that into account. The reason we used this system was because my principal was emphatic...He did not want only gifted or Junior Beta students to be on WVRES. He wanted everyone to have a chance. I agree. I suppose I feel that by choosing only the brightest fifth graders the school has to offer, then they could be overlooking someone who is not labeled as "gifted" who may have true talent or may become motivated by being allowed to participate. I realize that with responsibility comes a need for self-discipline. However, many fourth graders are surprisingly capable. If you raise the bar, expect kids to perform, and teach them how to do things right then it is not necessary to limit the playing field to a select few overachievers. You don't have to be in PC to handle this job. Not all good students fall into that category, and not all PC students can handle being a part. Of course, I know this is not your school and realize that I may have wandered a bit off topic, but I did want to comment on how it could sound like an elite niche group of students filling these roles from an outsider's perspective.
One last comment I have is that I agree that is nice when the morning announcements free up teachers to take attendance. In fact, this is the first school I've worked at that has them, so I know what you mean by teachers having to read the announcements from a piece of paper (which is a waste of money to print) each day.