Give Them What They Want

What is that? When students get their yearbooks, what is the first thing they do? a.Look for the cute guy/girl they’ve had a crush on all year. b.Find their favorite teacher to have him/her sign it. c.Look for where they are in it and how many times. d.Set it aside and never touch it.

What is that? When students get their yearbooks, what is the first thing they do? a.Look for the cute guy/girl they’ve had a crush on all year. b.Find their favorite teacher to have him/her sign it. c.Look for where they are in it and how many times. d.Set it aside and never touch it.

Your Number 1 Job: Get every student in the book! – Students want to see themselves in the book, and they don’t want to just see their school photo.

Your Number 1 Job: Get every student in the book! – Students want to see themselves in the book, and they don’t want to just see their school photo. — They want to see themselves in action: having fun with friends, looking good, caught off-guard, doing the things they love.

Your Number 1 Job: Get every student in the book! – Students want to see themselves in the book, and they don’t want to just see their school photo. – They want to see themselves in action: having fun with friends, looking good, caught off-guard, doing the things they love.

Are You Royalty? All of you will receive a playing card DO NOT look at the card when you get it When I say start, hold the playing card face out on your forehead and start mingling with the rest of the group. If you see people with an Ace, King, Queen, or Jack, do your best to talk with them If you see people with a 2, 3, 4, or 5, ignore them…they are too low. If you see people with a 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10, you can treat them so-so.

What does this tell us? After experiencing that for just 3 minutes, what realizations did you have? How does this come back to what we do in yearbook? What ideas do you have now to enhance coverage?

How do you get everyone in? As a staff, you have to strategize: Get a list of everyone in the school and divide it up among the staff. Each student becomes responsible for 25 – 30 students Use the list to make a coverage chart. Your goal is to get everyone in the book three times (one of those is the school photo). What will the other three ways be? Work a photo bar/strip into your book’s design and use identification captions Make your design coverage heavy (not ugly…but with more opportunities for storytelling)

Using the List Every three weeks, print a coverage report that is generated on the Jostens website for the staff to look at and use to direct the class If a student has been covered three times and it is only October, that student should probably be avoided to make sure others get into the book Use this coverage report to cross reference with the list of students attending your school You can also use the report to help show who has purchased the book and still not been featured in it

Now What? The trick to great coverage is great collaboration and great planning As a staff or in small teams, plan out what the coverage is going to be for each spread Before you start, talk to people who might have ideas for this topic Brainstorm ways to make coverage more unique

For Example The Homecoming King or Queen The Pep Assembly The Dance was fun The football team played great Students participated in Dress-up Days Kids built floats for their clubs/classes Everyone is excited to be back at school Whenever we cover Homecoming, we always do the same old thing:

But What If… What if for once, you worked to find the story – The story that made you laugh – The story that made you feel some sort of emotion – The story that made you feel embarrassed for someone (in a good way) – The story that instilled real excitement – The story that people will want to remember?

You could end up with this… “This year, I bought a strapless dress for Homecoming, but my chest wasn’t big enough to fill it out. So, my mom, my grandma, and my mom’s friend took me to the Beauty Mart to buy me some ‘Boobs in a Box.’ While we were standing in line to pay, I took one out and put it down my shirt to see how it works. My grandma grabbed it from me, and yelled, ‘You’re doing it wrong! Here’s how you do it.’ And she grabbed the fake boob and stuck it down my shirt onto mine. Everyone in the store was laughing. I was so embarrassed.”

Great Coverage That story speaks for itself You don’t have to change it or add in anything to it Sure, you didn’t write it, but you found the story and you covered it!

But Let’s Take a Step Back The way to get great coverage is to make sure there is great planning and collaboration To get that story, the staff had to be talking about looking at Homecoming differently – They probably wanted a story about getting ready for the dance – They probably wanted something first person – And they probably had multiple people asking classmates what their experiences were

Let’s See Your Creativity Math class The basketball team Relationships (family, boyfriend/girlfriend, best friends) Halloween Studying After school hangout spots Jobs Trends in the year (fashion, music, food…) In groups of three, come up with as many unique ways to cover the following topics:

Story Starters Sometimes the toughest part is getting the story started. Use these Story Starters from Jostens to help you get going

Story Starters To find all of Jostens Story Starters, log in to Yearbook Avenue or Year Tech Online – Click on the Digital Classroom – Select Story Starters and the key word or phrase you need Remember, these are starters—use them for help, but bring your own creativity to the table

Coverage is Key Remember, you can have a great yearbook…it can look great and be colorful, but all of that is lost if you don’t have AMAZING COVERAGE. Get out and experience the school so that years later, your peers will be able to go back and have that same experience time and time again.

Contact Karen Wagner Eaglecrest High School CHSPA Past President