As the Editor in Chief of The Eagle, I am excited to announce the successful launch of Eberhart Elementary's new student newsletter. On behalf of The Eagle's staff of young journalists, I'd like to share the excitement and promise that this opportunity has presented. In my first month at Eberhart, I have witnessed, firsthand, the talent, creativity, and desire that our students possess to craft meaningful and purposeful writing. The Eagle is, in many respects, our own little sandbox...our proving ground to take our writing to new heights and new frontiers.
Among The Eagle's many exciting features are the medium through which we will reach a broader, more diverse audience. The Eagle, a monthly publication, will be distributed digitally in PDF format, making it more widely accessible to our readers from their computers, smartphones, and tablets. Teachers and parents, alike, will be able to share our journalists' writing with ease, making their writing experiences a platform for all our writers to examine and produce similarly fantastic work. Additionally, The Eagle can be accessed via this, our new blog and website. The addition of this site to our arsenal of distribution tools will also allow us to engage our readers more directly and make the process of creating our first and future issues transparent. The goal is simple, to make our writing and the writing it inspires a three-dimensional experience for all to enjoy. Lastly, the use of a digital medium for distribution significantly reduces our carbon footprint, while allowing us to bypass the limitations to publication imposed by paper, toner, and equipment costs.
Over the course of the year, our staff of journalists will have the opportunity to "dip their pen" into a broader variety of writing styles and techniques to produce their articles. As their writing teacher, this allows me to promote a passion for writing without stifling their writing or limiting it to a single style of writing over an extended period of time. Because writing for The Eagle is a small-group effort, I am able to give my students the one-on-one conferencing and attention to improving their writing that all young writers deserve. In that one month span, each group will have practiced, experienced, and developed their familiarity with whatever style and technique their project may have required, allowing them to try their hand at a different style and technique the next month.
In the coming days following this launch, our dedicated staff will be hitting the halls to promote The Eagle and encourage the submission of original student work through the projects they are developing for our October issue, set to release October 31st. I, too, encourage my colleagues to spread the word to their students and promote the contribution of their writing, art, and other original work to enrich the quality and variety of each issue. From room 707, this is Mr. Alday looking forward to bringing you our first issue of The Eagle very soon.
