Help Us Mentor Fouth And Fifth Graders

Our story is about an innovative program teaching fourth and fifth graders to become journalists.

There is no other program like ours in the United States.  In fact, the United States is one of the few countries in the world that does not require the teaching of media literacy.

Without curiosity, there would be no journalism.  Our students understand journalism is a form of writing that tells people about things that really happened, but that they may not have already known about.  That it is about educating their audience.

The mission of The Young Journalist Program is to nurture intellectual curiosity and instill a lifelong love of reading and writing by mentoring fourth and fifth grade students in the publication of their very own “scholarly articles.”  It is to teach fourth and fifth grade students how to become journalists.

The primary principle behind The Young Journalist Program is that the best predictor of life’s success is one’s reading and writing ability in primary school.   Education research data shows that reading at age seven was a key factor in determining whether these students went on to get a high-income job.  That they went on to having better housing and more professional roles in adulthood.

Our Program helps grow readers, and through their reading helps grow writers.  It uses writing to support reading and reading to support writing.  Reading, be it through research, or absorbing other journalists’ writing, and each other’s writing, supports further writing.

To support our student’s journalism education, our curricula feature sophisticated writing styles where they read out-loud biographies of 24 journalists, such as E. B. White (colloquial), Marjorie Stoneman Douglas (advocacy), Nellie Bly (undercover), Hunter Thompson (Gonzo) and Walter Cronkite (broadcast).

The curricula also include sections on sophisticated vocabulary, such as “satire,” “serendipity,” and “devour;” as well as sections on punctuation (;), The Freedom of Information Act, Freedom of the Press, The First Amendment, the role of humor in journalism, interviewing skills and Ivy League Colleges.

In the Spring of 2019, the Young Journalist Program was recognized by the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), the oldest organization representing journalists in the United States, established in 1909 at DePauw University.  SPJ sent a representative to observe the class and write about it on the SPJ website.

Since 2018 the Program has grown from one elementary school with six students to nine elementary schools and has mentored 190 students and published ten periodicals of their “Scholarly Articles.” 

The Young Journalist Program believes that all intellectually bright and gifted students are entitled to a fair chance to live up to their potential.  It is a challenge for teachers to give these students the attention and instruction they deserve.  Our program fills this void. 

Our opportunities are endless, perhaps becoming a national initiative.