Keynote speaker at ‘Charting Your Course’ is assistant director of the journalism program at Texas State University.
By J. Del Valle
sac-ranger@alamo.edu
This college’s journalism program will host “Charting Your Course,” a workshop for local high school students, from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sept. 16 in Loftin Student Center.
It will give them different perspectives on what to expect as journalism majors in college and as professionals in the workforce.
The conference is for high school students, but their teachers learn from this workshop as well, journalism Instructor Irene Abrego said.
“We wanted to put together something that would help high school teachers to get their students moving and working to produce their first (newspaper) issue at school,” said Abrego, an adviser for The Ranger.
Organizers try to have a well-rounded program so there is a little something for everybody.
The workshop will include sessions covering basic journalism such as the inverted pyramid news story format and interviewing. Advanced students returning from last year’s workshop will be learning about feature writing, blogging and photography.
Local professionals and this college’s journalism and photography faculty will teach the sessions in Rooms 207, 209 and the craft room of Loftin.
With technology advancing every day, “Charting” speakers will share tutorials, tips and tricks in everything from news design to photography, such as the recent developments in iPhone photography.
Many also will share what they learned while taking journalism classes here and working on The Ranger.
“We like to invite former students to the workshop who have gone through the program, finished with their degree and now work in the business to show that this is definitely a valuable program for journalism majors,” Abrego said. “It’s a recruitment project for our department. Many of these students will be leaving high school, and we want to make sure they are introduced to San Antonio College.”
The keynote speaker will be Gilbert Martinez, senior lecturer and assistant director of the journalism program at Texas State University. Other participants include San Antonio Express-News writer Vincent Davis and former Express-News writer Benjamin Olivo, who is now a freelance blog writer. Both studied journalism here and worked on The Ranger.
High schools that have confirmed they will attend the workshop include Clemens, Stevens and Memorial.
The fee is $10 per student and free for teachers. It is open to all journalism students at this college.
For more information, call Abrego at 210-486-1778.