Ryan Dorgan | July 18, 2011
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| Photo by Ryan Dorgan |
| Taylor Hinton of Evansville works on a prom spread idea for her high school yearbook during a session at IU's High School Journalism Institute. Workshops continue through July 27. |
It was a quintessential lazy summer scene, a high school girl giving her bedroom desk or private journal a decoupage treatment, revealing her favorite bits of quirky glamour to those privileged enough to see them.
But Taylor wasn’t locked away in her bedroom, and she wasn’t cutting and pasting just to pass the time.
Hinton, a senior yearbook editor at Evansville Memorial High School, was visualizing and laying out the prom spread for next year’s Memorial yearbook, cutting and placing to precisely fit her vision of the perfect page.
She is one of 335 high school students who is choosing to spend a week of her summer in Bloomington as part of the 65th High School Journalism Institute, which gives secondary school students from around the country and the world a chance to sharpen their journalism skills and take that knowledge back to their own schools to share with their staffs.
“We want them to be able to go back and improve their student publications,” said HSJI director Teresa White. “We want them to learn to be a leader on their local staff, and to help spread that passion and knowledge that they got here.”
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| Photo by Ryan Dorgan |
| HSJI director Teresa White helps Goshen High School junior Mallory Payne as she begins to design a yearbook spread using Adobe InDesign. |
“Ultimately, the goal is to give the students who come here a fantastic experience in being immersed in journalism on a Big 10 campus and allowing them to have that wonderful pre-college experience that will help them practice their passion for journalism or discover their passion for journalism,” said White.
Last week, students attended either yearbook, online, newspaper/news magazine or photojournalism workshops.
“We’re learning how to lead a class and work on collaboration, and being open-minded with other people’s ideas,” said Hinton of the yearbook workshop. “Our yearbook staff is really relaxed and doesn't always meet deadlines, so this has been really helpful in learning what to focus on.”
In a classroom down the hall, Lake Zurich High School senior Joe Koncel, a managing editor for his school’s paper, was working on adding video and a digital edition of his school’s paper to a website using Word Press.
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| Photo by Ryan Dorgan |
| Lake Zurich High School senior Joe Koncel, a managing editor for his school’s paper, works on adding video and a digital edition of his school’s paper to a website using Word Press. |
The college atmosphere includes living in Teter Residence Halls, with roommates and IU journalism students as counselors, and working with college students in other capacities, both to further the projects and get a feel for college life.
“There are a lot of good questions, but at the same time they’re very competent,” said IU journalism senior Stephen Hicks, who is working as a lab assistant for the institute. “It’s good to see these high school students coming into college with the skills they’ll need, sometimes even exceeding the skills that some students here at IU have.”
This week’s workshops include television, yearbook, business/advertising, photojournalism and newspaper/news magazine. The series wraps up July 23-27 with yearbook, photojournalism, newspaper/news magazine, design and multimedia workshops.
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