Oct. 7, 2024
Our past three editions
Sept. 30, 2024 Tropical storm Helene • Plastic bags • Gun safety
Sept. 23, 2024 Instagram changes • Vaccines • Ultraprocessed foods
Sept. 16, 2024 Vape use • Apple release • Political endorsements
THE LEAD
Election brings more than just presidential race
Local, state races are also on the ballot
With fewer than 30 days until Election Day, races everywhere are entering their final stretch. The presidential contest dominates national news headlines, but voters are also deciding the outcomes of local and state races.
At the state legislature level, the partisan control of the state hangs in the balance of the upcoming election. Arizona, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are all states to watch, NPR reported.
What you can do —
Some communities do not have a local newspaper covering these smaller races. That’s where student journalists can come in. Take a look at the races and issues on the ballot in your community. If the ballot includes local races like school board, mayor and city council, consider reaching out to those candidates to do Q and A’s or short profiles on them and the issues students care about. There also may be ballot questions regarding community or state policies that could be unpacked with interviews with experts.
It can be daunting to take on political coverage, but at the end of the day it is an important area of coverage for many readers. Some students in your school may be eligible to register to vote for the first time. Consider including a graphic of how to register, including deadlines and any identification requirements, in your coverage.
NSPA hosts a campaign photo exchange where member publications can share campaign photos for use by other student journalists. If you are looking for high-quality images from national campaigns, check it out.
Noteworthy
Community-level efforts can help limit food waste
Highlight what happens to food waste at your school
About a third of all food in the United States is never eaten and instead ends up in landfills across the country. In 2015, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency set a goal of reducing nation-wide food waste by 50% by 2030. That hasn’t happened yet.
During its Climate Solutions Week, NPR highlighted a number of interesting community interventions aimed at reducing local food waste. Some solutions relied on kids getting involved, or leaned on local farms and land to support the effort.
What you can do —
Look around your community for food waste reduction efforts already underway. Maybe there is a community-wide composting initiative, or a local restaurant is doing its part. If an effort already exists, your publication could highlight their work while also diving into why it’s important. At the school level, does your recycling program work to make sure food waste is in the right place?
Food and agriculture are responsible for more than a quarter of the pollution driving climate change, and there is some interesting science to explore.
There are also mitigation efforts that can be taken in the home — talking to advocates and researchers about what small changes people can make would be an interesting story.
What’s viral
Fat Bear week comes to a close
Cover competition for a light-hearted break
For the last 10 years, some of nature’s largest brown bears have competed in a single elimination tournament for the honor of being crowned Fat Bear Week champion. Hosted by Katmai National Park in Alaska, Fat Bear Week celebrates the end of the bears’ feeding season in preparation for winter hibernation.
Voting for the bear that “best exemplifies fatness and success” closes 9 p.m. EST Oct. 8.
What you can do—
Though the competition is almost over, it is not too late to gather reactions and winner predictions from your community. A quick social media video where students and staff vote for their favorite of the finalists would be a lighthearted and simple addition to your feed. There may be people in your school who filled out an entire bracket — check in to see how many winners they picked.
IT’S AN HONOR
NEW FEATURE!
Quill and Scroll is launching a members-only area this week. It includes bellringers and lesson plans for members. We will be highlighting something from it in each Weekly Scroll. We’re highlighting one of each this week.
Writing Captions: This bell ringer takes students through caption basics and includes a small assessment.
News Media Evaluation Activity: In this lesson, students will examine how to use the comments from the News Media Evaluation Service to help set student-media level SMART goals.
Please note, you must be logged in to access these resources. More information on how to log in can be found at the end of this Scroll.
It’s always membership season
Don’t forget you can nominate members year round
Do you have a senior who just met the GPA requirement or a student who now wants to join Quill and Scroll? Want to avoid the spring rush? Nominate students for membership order pins, cords and other Quill and Scroll materials and memorabilia.
We haven’t changed the ordering process from last year. For those wanting to ditch the paper version, you just need to select the form based on how you would like to pay. We have one version for credit card and another version for check or purchase order. (We’ve added buttons for ease of finding these.) As usual, credit card payments are charged $4.49 per order for processing.
Writing, Visual, Multimedia contest open
Due date is Feb. 5
The entry form is live and we are accepting submissions. Be aware, we have added a few categories and changed a few items and descriptions. The cost is $8 for all entry types and you may submit live links. If you would rather make a PDF of the submission, you may still do this as well. Please make sure to allow anyone with the link to view. Remember, we don’t accept a Google document as an entry. We only accept published work.
Please make a note — all entries and payments will be due Feb. 5.
Make sure to include either your credit card payments or check or purchase order when you enter. The link provided on the site will take you directly to the credit card or check/purchase order page for the order. The WVM category payment option is at the bottom of the page.
Please reach out if you have any questions.
National High School Journalism Convention travels to Philadelphia
This fall the nation’s largest gathering of high school journalists, advisers and journalism teachers will be held Nov. 7-10 at the Philadelphia Marriott.
The JEA/NSPA National High School Journalism Convention offers hundreds of instructional sessions, keynote speakers from national newsmakers, dozens of media critiques, JEA’s popular on-site media contests and the announcement of NSPA national winners for Pacemaker Awards and Individual Awards. NSPA also offers a convention Best of Show competition that celebrates current student media work.
Registration is open now. The early bird discount ended Oct. 3 but online registration won’t close until Oct. 17, which is in 10 days.
No Weekly Scroll
We will pause the Weekly Scroll for next week. Also, we will not publish during the weeks of Nov. 4 and Nov. 11 when we travel to our college and high school conventions, respectively.
Thank you for understanding.
Just a thought
We are ready to go!
Our members-only area is now live and ready.
For those of you who have ordered a membership during the past year, you should have received an email from [email protected] by Monday morning. If you didn’t, please first check your spam folder. If you still don’t see it, it may have been blocked by your school’s firewall, please reach out to us at [email protected] and we will help you troubleshoot!
The email you receive contains your username and password, as well as a link to login. When you open the website to login, please accept cookies via the popup on the bottom of the page. This will limit the number of times you have to login!
Like anything new, we know we will have a few issues. (Although I promise we have tested and tested this feature.) Please have patience with us as we start this offering.
For our first round, we have eight lesson plans and about 20 bell ringers. We anticipate adding to these at some points during the school year. Please send suggestions or ideas to [email protected].
Also, we have edited (and edited) these materials. However, we also realize mistakes do happen.
If you have problems accessing the members-only area, please contact us at [email protected].
Finally, thanks to all who applied to our Student Advisory Board. We will announce this group next in our next Weekly Scroll.
— Lori Keekley
