It’s mid-morning, just before lunch, and the students in Miranda Spangler’s fourth-grade class at Swain West Elementary are clustered together on a large carpet square at the front of the room.

The group is generating story ideas for the second issue of The Patriot Times, the class’s self-started, self-run newspaper due out April 20. School is nearing an end, and students have entered the last nine-week grading period of the year.

“OK, what could we do with the last nine weeks?” Spangler asks. “Who would be a really good group to interview about the last nine weeks?”

A moment of silence passes while fingers fiddle with carpet nubbies, heads cock slightly sideways and eyes narrow in concentration.

“The fifth-graders?” pipes up a voice from the crowd.

The fifth-graders are the heads of this rat pack, the oldest kids in school. At least for now. Next year, they’ll move on to the middle school, and back to the bottom of the food chain.

A girl raises her hand

“Are we using the big paper ... things?” she asks, hands motioning the long, narrow shape of a traditional newspaper.

“Yes, we’ll use the 11-by-17 inch paper so it will look like a real newspaper,” Spangler says.

The students turn to one another and smile with a gleam in their eyes. The first issue of the paper was printed on regular 8 by 12 copier paper. One might say it didn’t quite measure up.

“They’re looking forward to having more space,” Spangler says.

The class newspaper is something entirely new, borne from a recent reading assignment, The Landry News. The book tells the story of Cara Landry, a quiet, new fifth-grader who goes unnoticed by her classmates and teacher until she publishes the first issue of The Landry News.

In her editorial, Landry writes a pointed one-liner, “There is a teacher in the classroom, but he does not teach.” The commentary prompts Landry’s teacher to find a renewed vigor for his profession, as he brings the lessons of journalism into the classroom and The Landry News becomes a class project. The introduction of a school newspaper angers the principal, and what begins as a class conflict grows into a First Amendment issue.

After finishing the book in class, Spangler asked her students if they would be interested in starting a newspaper of their own. The response was a resounding, “yes.”

Students picked out a name and masthead, and came up with five story ideas, including an interview with the school principal, a piece about the 100th day of school, and a piece about a recent talent show. Spangler serves as the paper’s editor.

“They told me I had to do an editorial, and that’s the only one that I write,” Spangler said.

Armed with flipbook notepads and pencils, students are learning how to collect the basics — who, what, where, when, why and how — and transform that information into an article. The stories are short and short on Associated Press style, but the experience of gathering and processing information helps improve critical thinking skills, as well as writing and typing skills, Spangler said.

But the hardest part is just getting started, said students Libby Greene and Kylie Kinsey.

“Interviewing people probably,” Greene said.

“To have the right questions,” Kinsey explained.

Consequently, the best stories are those that require the least amount of interviews, they said.

On the opposite side of the room students Trevor Woodard, Ashton Turbyfill and Darian Smith get to work on a story about a recent field trip to the Mountain Farm Museum near Cherokee. They’re going sentence by sentence, Woodard and Smith leaning in to provide their input. But Turbyfill is the one holding the pencil.

“We kind of agree,” Turbyfill says, explaining how the group comes up with how to say each sentence before writing it down.

Smith shoots her a look.

“Oh now,” Turbyfill says.

“No we don’t,” Smith says.

And has the experience generated any interested in becoming a journalist?

“No,” Woodard says.

“I don’t know,” Smith says.

“I want to be a teacher because it pays good,” Turbyfill says.

•••

Cherokee Heritage Projects
By: Ashton Turbyfill, Caitlin Brooks, Trevor Woodard
and Brooke Kistler
Students in Mrs. Spangler’s fourth grade class recently studied the Cherokee people. To conclude their activities, each student created a project that illustrated what they had learned. There were models of Cherokee homes, games, a doll dressed in traditional clothing, recipes to try, dictionaries, and even a drum. The students really enjoyed tasting the recipes and playing the games. Mrs. Spangler was even caught having some fun of her own with the drum. Sharing these projects was fun for everyone!

Mr. Harvey’s Wax Museum
By Kylie Kinsey, Gabrielle Beam and Travis Burrell
Mr. Harvey’s class recently held a wax museum. Mr. Harvey got this neat idea from his own fifth grade teachers. First, his students picked a person from American history. Then, they found a book about that person to read. Next, they got an encyclopedia and got on the Internet to do some research. The students picked their own costume and made their own wax museum button. Each student had three weeks to read their book and one week to get their costume ready.

The Patriot Times interviewed a few of the students who were involved. Zach Kinsey was Harry Houdini. He picked this person because he loves magic. Zach said it took him one week and four days to get everything finished. Morgan Arvey was Betsy Ross because she likes to sew, and Betsy Ross sewed the first American flag. Morgan really liked being Betsy. Jared Turbyfill was Sequoyah because of his Cherokee heritage. He said it took him two days to read his book and three days to get his costume ready. He also said that he really enjoyed doing it.

Mr. Harvey has been doing his wax museum for three years, so this is something that you younger students can look forward to.