Publication Date: Wednesday Jan 17, 2001

Paly's Wojcicki gets fellowship

Student journalists weren't the only ones winning awards this year. Paly's English and journalism teacher, Esther Wojcicki, is among the 18 teachers across the country who were named Carnegie Foundation Scholars. Each year the foundation selects outstanding teachers to participate in the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Through the fellowship, Wojcicki will receive support and funding to pursue writing and research projects that will benefit students and teachers of high school journalism.

As a scholar, Wojcicki plans to develop a curriculum for high school Web journalism. Although her class at Paly continues to focus on putting out newspapers in print, she sees Web publishing as an important alternative. She says that underfunded schools often don't offer journalism courses because they can't afford to print the papers. Yet with training, students could easily publish an on-line paper for little or no money at all.

Wojcicki will write a book--either a framework for running a high school journalism program, or a comprehensive guidebook for students starting out in journalism. She'll also continue developing a Web site on "learning communities." The site will present information drawn from a research project, which had indicated that the peer editing that takes place in Wojcicki's journalism class dramatically improves students' writing.

Teachers can't apply to become Carnegie Foundation scholars unless they're nominated first. But given Wojcicki's long list of accomplishments, it's not surprising that someone thought she'd make a good candidate. In addition to dedicating herself to Paly's newspaper, she also encouraged students to try publishing a magazine. In its second year now, the magazine is already winning awards (see accompanying story).

In 1990, Wojcicki was named Teacher of the Year, and she is now one of only two teachers in the district to be certified by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards.

While director of education for the Varian Fry Foundation, she also helped together teaching tools and a study guide to accompany a video about the American journalist. During World War II, Fry helped about 2,000 scholars and artists living in France escape from the Nazis. The materials were so well received that another Foundation paid to have them distributed to every high school in the country.

There's no question that Wojcicki is one individual who's made a difference at Paly. When she first took over the journalism program back in 1978, the Campanile had a staff of 19 students, and in the introductory course, students read chapters in a textbook and answered multiple choice questions. To publish the paper, a student would type up the stories on a typewriter, cut each one out using a razor blade, and then past them together on a page to be reprinted.

Having previously worked for both the Los Angeles Times and Time Magazine, Wojcicki was not impressed with the status quo. She tossed the textbook and made newspapers required reading instead. Her intensive Journalism I course now covers the ethics and legal issues of journalism, and requires that students write one 500 word article per week, which they must rewrite--five times or more, if necessary--until it meets her standards for being published.

Before the semester is over, students will have experience writing news stories, features, reviews and editorials, and will be able to lay out a page using PageMaker and PhotoShop.

After taking the course, students sign onto the newspaper staff. At that point, they're on their own. Although she's happy to offer advice and suggestions, Wojcicki leaves it up to the students to run the paper and choose their stories.

"At most high schools, the advisor is a censor," Wojcicki says. "Whereas, I train them and then I trust them. They learn a tremendous amount by simply being put in charge."

Under her guidance, the Campanile has become one of the leading student papers in the nation. The professional-looking formatting and full-size pages make each issue look surprisingly similar to a corporate-run daily paper.

All it takes is a brief visit to Wojcicki's classroom to catch hints that she's no ordinary teacher. The American flag is hanging upside down--its stripes, not its stars--attached to the pole. Posted on the wall below is a quotation from Thomas Jefferson. It says that if forced to choose between a government without a newspaper and a newspaper without a government, he'd take the latter.

In a sense, these two details symbolize the values Wojcicki brings to her work. It was her students who switched the flag around to remind staff writers to think outside the conventional wisdom as they pursued their stories.

The Jefferson quotation Wojcicki posted herself. She says it reflects her belief in the potential of journalism to do good in the world.

"Newspapers are really like the watchdogs of society," she says. "I try to teach kids to think on a daily basis, so even if they don't end up going into journalism, it'll help them become a better a person." 

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