Newspapers Embrace the 5 Cs

     The 5 Cs.  Everyone in education has heard of this powerful initiative to engage students.  Communication, collaboration, creativity, critical thinking, and citizenship. Sometimes we find it easy to incorporate, and sometimes we find it challenging, ready to give up.  Teachers need to be reminded, however, that not every lesson captures every component.  And not every lesson that focuses on some will capture all five.  
       One student-led, inquiry-based project that easily supports all five is researching and writing stories to create a group newspaper. Studying newspaper sections and what goes into it is a fantastic way to build schema to help ensure a better product.  As groups communicate over what goes into their newspaper, they must collaborate on layout and content while being as creative as they can to include rich content in their subject area.  Subject matter can build awesome citizenship while thinking critically about not only the short term requirements but long term goals of the finished real world product. 
       Connecting this whole project to their daily lives and content they're studying in classes can be a powerful experience while they're building a newspaper.  Have fun with it!

~Cheers
Scott, Founder of Build a Newspaper