NEWSPAPERS AT WORK

Chaffee Current Events teacher Kent Mangels knows that newspapers in the classroom work, and he has the enrollment to prove it.

Before he started using the Southeast Missourian as the primary source of information for the course, Current Events at Chaffee had an enrollment of just nine students. This semester, the course has 32 enrolled.

Mangels is among teachers taking advantage of the Southeast Missourian's Newspapers in Education program.

Kim McDowell, coordinator of the Newspapers in Education, said 60 schools and 360 teachers hope to participate in the program this year. Newspapers are delivered to schools in Cape Girardeau, Scott, Bollinger and Perry counties.

"At present our requests are averaging 2,900 newspapers a day," she said. "The outcome of YELL will determine if we can meet those numbers."

Delivery of newspapers does not begin until Sept. 21, except for current events teachers like Mangels who depend on the newspapers in their classes.

McDowell said requests for classroom newspapers are well above last year's level.

"We have a dramatic increase in the requests due to the popularity of the program, the interest of the students and the interest of the teachers," she said.

"We know we will be able to meet last year's numbers, but we have requests for 700 more. We are hoping that an increase in the YELL contributions will allow us to provide all the newspapers."

Mangels said, "I started using the Southeast Missourian last year. I've taught this class for four or five years. At one time, we used Time magazine exclusively. That's a week's worth of news, but there was no local news. It got to a point that students didn't really like the course."

He switched to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "While it's a fine newspaper, it's so huge and again it didn't cover the local stuff my students were interested in."

Now he uses the Southeast Missourian along with Time magazine.

"We have been pleased with the Southeast Missourian because it offers such a wide range of news, not just local news but national news and world news," Mangels said.

Students taking Current Events write about local, national and world events daily, but Mangels said the local issues interest students most.

"The Southeast Missourian does such a good job with the local events," he said.

"I have seen a huge difference from other years. Time magazine is a great magazine, but it's kind of tough for high school students to get into. To me, the Southeast Missourian does a terrific job of getting kids interested in the news."

Mangels also teaches American History, Government and Sociology at Chaffee High School. The newspaper is used occasionally in these courses to supplement the textbook.

"Sometimes the Southeast Missourian publishes articles on history or some kind of archaeological find. We will bring those articles to class and post them on the bulletin board. We may spend 30 minutes discussing the article and the event it covers."

Mangels added that the Southeast Missourian has done a good job of getting the newspapers to his class on time. "Many times the St. Louis paper was not here until after the class."

The newspapers are provided to teachers free.

This fall, all the teachers are being sent a resource guide with ideas on how take advantage of newspapers in the classroom.

McDowell said, "The guide covers all subject matter and all grade levels." Teachers receiving NIE newspapers are at all grade and subject levels from first to 12th.

"Teachers who used the program previously and their students make an impression on the other teachers as to how much they like the program and how comfortable they are using newspapers in the classroom," said McDowell. Each section of the newspaper offers something for teachers to use: from the weather map to classifieds.

The Mini Page, a supplement to the Monday edition, is particularly popular in elementary classrooms.

"The Monday paper is our most popular due to the Mini Page," said McDowell. "Elementary teachers often ask for that paper only, which we encourage, because it allows us to distribute to more teachers overall."

"This is our third year, and we have increased every year," McDowell continued. "We get more calls each August and September asking when the newspapers are coming and more thank-you notes at the end of the year. Newspapers are definitely now a part of the curriculum. And that's good for the children."