Getting started

May 2, 2008

The girls and I met with Suzanne the first time to discuss ideas and how to get started on their journalism projects for the Atencion.

Each of the girls talked about their ideas of what to write about and Suzanne gave suggestions on what to pursue.

It was decided that the girls could either work together on a story or work individually.

The focus of their writings were to be from a teen perspective.

Suzanne wanted them to each think about something interesting and appealing and for the following week to bring in an outline on what they'd like to write about.

Below are the outlines each girl turned in:

From Maya:
5/5/08
I think it would be a good idea if I or we or who ever, go around asking teenagers (or what ever they are) where they are from and then interview them about how they feel about leaving their home town. What it was like to leave friends and family behind and come to a new country. If they like it here. If it is hard or was hard for them to make new friends. If it was difficult to accustom to a new place.

And I also think we mentioned interviewing teens on their after school activities and how long they've been taking them. If they take classes just to do something or they really love it and want to be good at what they are doing.

From Melissa
5/5/08
I would like to do an opinion essay about what is
needed for teenagers in San Miguel. I think that this
would be fun to write because I can express what I
feel about this and it is something that I feel
connected to. Not many people think about this or have
any idea of what a teenagers life in San Miguel is
without things to do like activities and such and so I
would like to inform people about this.
I will state ideas of what SMA needs, how it will
affect the teenage life, possible about teenage life
in San Miguel.
Some of my questions for Susan:
How many words should this essay have?
What font?
Who should this be directed to?
How personal should I get?
Do I need to interview other teens about this?
How strongly should I state my opinion and how
directly?

From Kirby
5/5/08

The Need for a Teen Center in San Miguel

This article will be about creating a teen center for San Miguel. Although there are many activities in San Miguel, there aren’t very many places for only teens to hang out. This article will be an investigation piece because we aren’t sure whether there are other places for teens so we would like to find out.

· We will talk about how we would like the teen center to be. Whether it would be owned by the city, or privately owned, what kind of entertainment it would have, whether there would be adult supervision, where it would be located, or what we would like it to look like.

· The best way to find out how teens would like the teen center to be is to interview people. We will interview 10 people, 5 girls, 5 boys, through the ages 12 -16. We would also like to interview teens that are Mexican and American and other nationalities because there are many teens living here from other parts of the world.

· We would like to talk about why a teen center would be such a good idea for San Miguel. How teens would have something more to do and a new place to hang out with other teens.

· There are teen centers in other cities that we could mention in comparison such as the Aspen teen center.

Once we have a clear idea of teens would like, we will make a list of questions to ask the city.

A few questions for Suzanne:

In what format would you like it to be written? i.e. which font, double-spaced, etc.

1. Should we include a picture? (of another teen center maybe)
2. Once we develop questions from our topic, to whom in the city should we speak to?
3. How many words?
4. Should we state our opinion too?