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3rd International Newspapers in Education Conference September 5-8, Paris, France Daily News Here are summaries of presentations at WAN's 3rd International Newspapers in Education Conference. For more information -- including copies of the presentations and WAN's soon-to-be-published NIE Conference Report -- contact Amélie Kalinine, WAN, 25 rue d'Astorg, 75008 Paris France, Tel: +33 1 47 42 85 00, Fax +33 1 47 42 49 48. E-mail: akalinine@wan.asso.fr
+ Please click here for summaries of Monday, 6 September presentations
Presentations, Tuesday, 7 September 1999 POSTED 14:25 GMT, 7 SEPTEMBER "The Future of Reading: What Research is Really Telling Us" "Reading,
Writing and the World: Literacy Issues in the New Millennium" Is reading threatened? "Reading itself is not threatened as long as we as a global society understand what it means to be a reader," said Dr. Ruddell, a professor at Sonoma State University. "It is not only the skills needed to decipher language. To be a reader is to be fully aware of the world around you, to have access to enjoyment and all kinds of information." Dr. Ruddell summarised research showing the link between low literacy rates and a host of world problems -- poverty, disease, low life expectancies -- followed by research on how children become literate. She finished with conclusions about how this research can help us move toward the goal of increased world literacy. Among the studies was one by sociologist Lorri Neilsen which showed that the face of illiteracy is female, and that maternal literacy has a greater impact on children's health than does income. Another study, by Indiana University, showed that "pretend" writing by children indicates they are written language users and learners long before they receive formal instruction. "People think that children will be reading video screens in the future, but I think they'll be reading text for many years to come," said Dr. Ruddell. What can media do to promote reading? Keep producing text for children and adults to read. Use many sources when you think about teaching children to read. Keep sponsoring events that focus on the issues of literacy. - - - - - - - - - - - - "Written
Communication in Latin America" Unlike Dr. Ruddell, Dr. Entel believes reading is threatened. "In fact, what we need to do is make major efforts to secure the future of reading," she said. "I would say that 'quality' reading is threatened -- the sort of reading that makes in-depth understanding possible." Dr. Ruddell's studies of college students in Buenos Aires found that many of them had trouble following narrative -- ironic is a region known for such narrative writers as Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Mario Vargas Llosa. "This narrative tradition hasn't been sufficiently leveraged in our schools," she said. "People aren't interested enough in preparing their imaginations." "Latin America has the highest proportion of workers who have some primary education, but the lowest proportion of workers who have secondary study," she said. "If a large part of the population doesn't have secondary education, this will hamstring quality reading in Latin America." She said the media should promote "quality" reading directly by using high quality narratives, and also by encouraging government plans "that stimulate this kind of activity." - - - - - - - - - - - - "Targeting the Young: New Editorial Strategies" "Lessons
From a Recent Launch: A Daily For Teens" Mr.Dufour, whose daily reaches teens across France, offers these lessons for reaching teen-age readers: --Teens do not want to spend more than ten minutes a day on a newspaper, so it has to be a quick read. --Sports and music news are very difficult to cover because the audience is split among many different passions. "You can't say, 'I'm doing a newspaper for teen-agers -- you have to remember you're writing for a segmented audience." --Teens interested in reading a newspaper are the ones interested in world news. "You really are targeting teens who are interested in world news." --Regarding TV news, teens want to know the truth behind what they see. --Teens want easy reading: first they read editorial cartoons, photos and big headlines. --Teens love news you can use... at school. --Lastly, never use the word "teens." - - - - - - - - - - - - "Developing
Young Newspaper Readership" T2 is the newspaper section for 10- to 16-year-olds in Saturday's Daily Telegraph, a broadsheet with a massive 1.3 million circulation on Saturday. "It's a tough brief: creating a section that teen-agers will want to read without the lure of full colour and glossy pages that the countless teen-age magazines have to offer," said Ms. Melrose. "But what became clear was that being 'different' could be our strength. Magazines are good at what they do, leave them to it. We were a weekly newspaper. And rather than try to hide that fact, we should use the advantages this afforded us. Immediacy and a format that echoed the newspaper." That mean T2 could be current. A breaking drug story. A piece on the Edinburgh festival. "Teen-agers appreciate that kind of immediacy because they live in a culture where they get everything NOW," said Ms Melrose. T2 follows the order found in most newspapers: splash, news, feature, interview, fashion, comment, reviews and sport at the back. It relies on a variety of "pulling" devices: content, bringing the content back to the reader (what do YOU think?), design and use of colour, tone, reader interaction, links to the main paper. "When this was first proposed, there were those who said it wouldn't work. They said teenagers don't think newspapers can be exciting. Don't like news. Don't want their parent's paper. Don't like newsprint. Don't read. "This negativity was quite shocking but we were realistic," she continued. "Yes, teen-agers are fickle -- they're into one trend one week, a new one the next. But they're not stupid. In all my years in children's publishing, one point I've always been clear on is: never underestimate a teen-ager." - - - - - - - - - - - - "ReadRight
in South Africa: Getting School Materials to Those in Need" The lack of textbooks in South African schools led to the launch of ReadRight, winner of WAN's 1999 World Young Reader Prize for providing quality classroom materials to South African schools. "To me, the most significant achievement of ReadRight is, we've managed to put five million cut-out and keep storybooks into the hands of South African school children. They are often the first books many of these children have owned," said Ms. Blakeway. Half of the country's schools are without textbooks, and 85 percent don't have reading books or libraries. ReadRight, published 32 weeks of the year to coincide with the school term, provides story books, exercises, maps and a wide range of activities to attract and instruct the young. "We are trying to address a need where there is a critical lack of classroom materials," said Ms Blakeway. In addition to subscription copies, the newspaper provides 36,500 copies free to 900 schools in rural areas and urban township areas. It intends to focus on more teacher training and field work this school year so the materials can be used more effectively, she said. - - - - - - - - - - - - "Reporters
On-Line: A Project For Young Writers" Reporters On-Line, which will be launched on 15 September, is a press agency for young writers, edited by adults, posted on the internet and available for use by the media. "Reporters On-Line involves important stakes and opportunities -- to provide young people notions of citizenship and to give newspapers an understanding of the aspirations of future readers," said Mr Vandoorne. The service targets young Belgian writers aged 15 to 25 who are interested in contributing, through schools or on their own. About 20,000 will be chosen as regular correspondents. "We want to offer them the means of moving from being consumers of the written medium to being producers," said Mr Vandoorne. But it will also encourage them to become more regular readers, "particularly those newspapers who participate." For the newspapers, "we want to provide a different perspective, the perspective of the young, which journalists will then be allowed to use as they see fit." - - - - - - - - - - - - POSTED 18:55 GMT, 7 SEPTEMBER "International Young Reader Projects" "A Motto
for Europe" Europe has a flag, an anthem, a currency. But Europe has no motto to symbolise its integration. Ouest France, with the largest circulation in France (800,000), has devised "A Motto for Europe" competition along with 40 European dailies in which it invited young people, ages 11 to 19, from the 15 European Union countries to invent one. "In France, we have 'Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité' -- in Europe we are still looking for a motto," said Mr. La Prairie. "This is an occasion to assert the values of Europe, but also the values of the young." Each suggestion -- which can be submitted until 31 December 1999 -- must come from a class, following teaching work done during the autumn. The motto is to be under 12 words, accompanied by a 300-word essay on why the motto was chosen. Both are to be written in two languages -- the language of the country and English. A media panel will nominate the best mottoes to a European Grand Jury consisting of fifteen personalities (one per country) who will choose the Motto for Europe, which will be handed to the European Parliament in May 2000. An internet site will be the main hub of the project, where classes can register and submit their mottoes. The site is located at www.motto-europe.org. "We don't know how many mottos there will be. There will be thousands, obviously," said Mr La Prairie. - - - - - - - - - - - - "Press Freedom
2000" Under the auspices of WAN, Mr Van Der Weyden of the Netherlands and Jan Vincens Steen of the Norwegian Newspaper Publishers Association will prepare a press freedom booklet for young people to be distributed to schools. "We found that for children, press freedom doesn't mean much to them," said Mr Van Der Weyden. "Press freedom is an adult concern." To increase awareness among the young, the booklet will be designed for children aged 10 to 18, and will ask them, "what kind of freedom do you know? What kind of freedom do they write about in newspapers?" The students will be asked to find examples. Among some of the project's exercises: A page of 30 photos, asking children to identify what freedoms are illustrated. Freedom to go to school? Freedom to love? To protest? Which are linked to freedom of expression? Why can't we always write what we want? World-wide celebrities will be asked how they define freedom of expression for young people, and the students will be asked to follow them in the newspaper to see if they live up to their definition. Students will also be asked to create their own press freedom posters and post cards, and send them to newspapers and government officials. "We want children to think about it, not to find solutions," said Mr. Van Der Weyden. - - - - - - - - - - - - "International
Youth Paper for the Year 2000" J. Presse, an association that supports and provides a network for student-run newspapers world-wide, put out a "call for contributors" one year ago for an International Youth Paper for the Year 2000. The response has been astounding. There have been 1,675 contributions from 78 countries, and the responses are still coming in. "What we want to do is see to it that young people can voice their concerns related to the year 2000, and to make resolutions for the year as well, said Mr Drapier. Contributors were asked to select from a comprehensive list of themes, covering every aspect of life, and write about it in regard to the year 2000. They were also asked to finish the following sentence: "I commit myself to do the following ..." The subject most often chosen for an essay? Love. "I find that very reassuring," said Mr. Drapier. The top 10: love, peace, drugs, the future, the year 2000, pollution, death, freedom, friendship, religion. The materials, which provide a snapshop of youth concerns on the eve of the year 2000, are being made available to newspapers world-wide for publication. The French newspapers Libération has already said it would run a 50- to 60-page supplement using them, Mr. Drapier said. More information can be found at the J.Presse web site: www.jpresse.org - - - - - - - - - - - - "Seeing
& Believing: The New Visual Literacy" Young people today should be trained to see, said Dr. Lambert, whose presented some strategies for a better understanding of newspaper photojournalism. "The problem today is digital imagery. We are facing a new economy of images that are symbolic," he said. "Newspaper photographs can be used and abused for other purposes, and this is a critical point," he said. "Children have to learn whose hands they went through, and what is the context in which we view it?" Forty photographs were used to illustrate his point. Among them was the famous photograph of a sole man stopping a line of tanks in Tianamen Square when Chinese troops put down the student democracy uprising. "I first saw it on television, where I thought I was seeing it live," said Mr. Lambert. "Although it wasn't live, television always implies that it is live." "The next day, I saw it on every front page. It was reduced to a symbol -- one man with two or three tanks, or, depending on the size, it could be one tank." Soon, the photo was being used by demonstrators against the Chinese government -- a visual image that had become so symbolic that it came to represent resistance to Chinese repression. Four months later, Mr. Lambert saw the same photo in a museum, giving it another meaning -- something to be viewed for its esthetic value. "Three years later, to my great horror, I saw that Virgin Records was using it in an advertisement," he said. "We have to understand where pictures come from, where they move to, and their symbolic weight," he said. He suggested that children learn how images are created, and by whom; the environment that determines how we look at them (front page? advertisement? museum?), if it refers to other images, and its symbolic effectiveness. - - - - - - - - - - - - Evening Event : Traditional music, dancing and dinner at the riverside "guinguette" Le Petit Robinson as guests of Electricité de France. For more information -- including copies of the presentations and WAN's soon-to-be-published NIE Conference Report -- contact Amélie Kalinine, WAN, 25 rue d'Astorg, 75008 Paris France, Tel: +33 1 47 42 85 00, Fax +33 1 47 42 49 48. E-mail: akalinine@wan.asso.fr |
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