Improving Teens’ Journalism Skills Through Writing

Children’s PressLine operates an after-school journalism program, where adolescent and teen participants work in teams to research story topics and conduct interviews with peers and policymakers on issues that affect young people in the community. Stories have been published in national publications as edited transcripts, highlighting the voice of the young interviewees. Children’s PressLine learned that teen participants want to be more involved in the writing component of the journalism process. To increase engagement, teens will now write traditional news articles, and Children’s PressLine will hire a writing coach to develop and implement a writing curriculum and work with teens to build their writing skills.