One of the most common requests I get from other advisers is for samples of newspapers. In the digital age, there are certainly lots of places to find articles written by high school students, but sometimes finding a digital copy of a print edition is tough. Some programs have already established robust trade lists and regularly send papers around the United States. 

If you don’t have a system in place yet, there is a new way to get some physical copies of newspapers produced by other high schools. Matt Bourke from York Community High School in Illinois started a new exchange program at the start of the 2023-24 school year. The initial exchange took place in September. It was so popular with his kids that he is doing it again this spring. Bourke shared the information on the JEA listserv on Monday, Jan. 29.

Here is what he wrote:

Hey, JEA!

After an incredibly successful first round of a national print swap, my students want to do it again! 

My students LOVE the print swaps at the local and national conventions. They leave with handfuls of magazines and newspapers and bring them back for plenty of design/story ideas to use in our own work. They go and make a collage wall for inspiration out of your students’ amazing print editions! Features on this fall’s wall included Dreyfoos’s The Muse, Charles E. Smith Jewish Day’s The Lion’s Tale, Stevenson’s The Statesman, and Bullitt East’s The Livewire, just to name a few! 

Here’s the pitch: if you mail me 10 of your magazines/newspapers, a few weeks later, I’ll mail you 10 back from across the country. We’ll handle the return postage. 🙂 

Fill out this form by February 9 and send your copies by February 13! 

FORM LINK: https://forms.gle/KcK9jDHRQceT9j2G7

Please feel free to reply off-list to mbourke@elmhurst205.org with any questions. 

Best,

Matt Bourke         [He/Him/His]

English, Journalism, & Drama

York Community High School

mbourke@elmhurst205.org

(630) 617-2400, ext. 7113

www.ThisIsYork.org | www.YorkDrama.org

The Dispatch, the student publication at James Bowie High School, participated in the first exchange, and I have been very pleased with the program.

“I always love getting physical copies of newspapers for my students to use,” Reeves said. “The set of papers we got for the first exchange were varied and that was great. We got a nice variety of papers from award-winning programs to papers we have never heard from. Just getting a sample of the voices from around the country was great.”

If you have been looking for a quick way to get some publications from other places, all Bourke requests is that you fill out the supplied form, and send some of yours. 

There are lots of ways to use these papers. Ideas include creating a collage wall of ideas/samples, asking students to look through the papers for story ideas before a brainstorm session, looking through the papers for design ideas, etc. The idea is to start borrowing from others to improve your publication. And it’s all acceptable and approved!!

So check it out if you want to get some papers from all across the country.

“If I was a new adviser, I would look at this as an opportunity to set up our own trade system,” Reeves said. “I have been trading papers for 15 years, and I know it has helped our program grow into a top-level product because we are borrowing from others.”