Jim Jordan's 40 Things To Do After The Yearbook Is Done

these style rules they will continually face. Each year, we find style issues that writers are struggling to understand, and we highlight them in the new manual for the next year. Early in the year, we also always have yearbook-style quizzes. If you don’t hold students accountable for learning many of these style issues, they will keep making the same mistakes. Our staff manual also contains a letter from the editors, a letter from the adviser, our policies on handling death and tragedy, our ad policies, how grading is handled, how to sell ads – a multitude of information every staffer needs to know as the year begins. You must develop a plan so the information in it is used. Otherwise, you will have created a cool book with great stuff in it that nobody ever looks at or uses. 37. ATTEND A SPRING CONVENTION One of the most important elements in preparing for the next yearbook year is attending a spring journalism convention. Depending on where you live, there are many great regional conventions put on by state press associations, like ILPC in Texas and FSPA in Florida. The Columbia Scholastic Press Association always holds its spring convention in March, and the National Scholastic Press Association, in partnership with the Journalism Education Association, holds their convention somewhere in the West in April. There is always a lot of learning and inspiration going on at any of these great gatherings of student journalists. Your new editors and staff can learn from many of the best advisers in the country by attending a wide variety of sessions geared to help them prepare to produce their book. I often could tell who my next editors would be based on who was able to work out getting to one of these conventions and how much they engaged in learning at the convention. Plus, it is a great time for the prospective editorial team to begin their own bonding process. The long hike we took together to get up to the Hollywood sign at the Los Angeles JEA/NSPA spring convention in April of 2016 brought us together in a way that really helped us get through the year. If we could hike that far, when we really had no idea where we were going, and make it to our final destination, our final goal together, then we knew we could conquer anything together – even making a yearbook!

Hello Hollywood. At the 2016 JEA/NSPA Spring Convention in Los Angeles, the editors bonded with a treacherous cross country hike from Griffith Park to the Hollywood sign.

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