Transition Unit

Producing a school magazine NCCA

An Chomhairle Náisiúnta Curaclaim agus Measúnachta
National Council for Curriculum and Assessment t

(Mini company)

Area of Study
Creativity and Enterprise

Overview
This unit affords students the opportunity to produce and sell a school magazine
by setting up a mini-company. In their English classes the students discuss their
vision for the school magazine and agree what topics would be most appealing to
teenagers. They learn how to research topics and the craft of writing using a variety of
styles. They enjoy taking on different roles within the overall Editorial team. With their
Business Studies teacher they develop a business plan and set about organising all
the steps involved in getting their magazine printed, promoted and sold (hopefully
with a profit!).
Students enjoy the challenge and the personal achievement of creating and marketing
their own magazine. This Unit offers a great diversity of experiences for the students
and develops some life-long skills such as planning skills, team-work skills, how to
work to deadlines, creative thinking, and much more.
Related learning
This unit builds on knowledge of a variety of writing styles developed at Junior Cert
English and develops them to the more advanced level expected at Leaving Cert. It
gives students practise in all five of the writing styles examined in the Leaving Cert.
English exam. As such it is an invaluable basis for Leaving Cert composition writing
as well as Q.B options on Leaving Cert Paper 1 and essay structuring on Paper 2.
Links with Business in terms of Enterprise, Marketing and P.R.
Links with Art for design, layout and use of graphics.
An additional option is to link into the challenge of presenting their school magazine
in The Irish Times Schools Magazine Competition.
Outline of the unit
This unit runs for one term (September – Christmas) approx 14 weeks. The English
and Enterprise class will both be timetable separately for 2 x forty minute classes per
week.
For the first double class both teachers might take the class together to introduce the
transition unit and explain how the different parts will fit together. This would also be
a good time to discuss the students’ hopes and expectations and to brainstorm initial
ideas. Previous school magazines might be shown to the students to inspire their
ideas.
The activities undertaken in the English and Enterprise classes are outlined below
separately.
ENGLISH
• Students are given the opportunity to browse through a wide range of
magazines in order to heighten their awareness of target audience.
• Students identify and discuss features of magazines that they as teenagers find
most appealing to establish ideas on content for their school magazine.
• Students discuss their vision for the magazine they will produce and decide on
a title in keeping with their vision.
• Students learn about the roles involved in magazine production – Editor, Deputy
Editor, Feature Articles Editor, Review Editor, Photo Editor.
• Students are taught Formal Letter of Application structure and submit letters
for the role they aspire to in the magazine.
• Students are allocated roles based on letters of application (interviews to assess
suitability for roles may also be conducted, time permitting)
• Students inform whole student body that they are producing a school magazine
and invite submissions in a number of categories. A competition may be run to
guarantee a high volume of submissions.
• Students learn the criteria for Feature Article, Report, Review and Short Story
writing and produce at least one edited piece in each of these genres.
• Students are taught research methods to employ in writing a Feature Article.
• Students learn about conducting interviews and practise assignments in
interviewing
• A local journalist is invited to talk to the class about the process of writing an
article
• Students read peer articles and discuss what should go into the magazine.
• Students work as a team laying out selected Feature Articles, Reports, Reviews,
Short Stories, placing ads, photos, art work, etc.
• Students agree magazine fillers – horoscopes, advice pages, upcoming events,
concerts, jokes, eccentric information, etc.
• Editor will organise articles to be sent to printers and ensure all ‘staff’ have met
their deadlines.
ENTERPRISE
• To engage students in the idea of producing a magazine a guest speaker from
the local Enterprise Board will come in and give a talk on what commitment is
required to make the mini-company a success.
• Then students prepare to conduct market research. Firstly, they must brainstorm
as a class the kind of information that they need to find out: who is our market,
what would the market like to see in the magazine, what price will they pay,
where will they buy it and why.
• The students as a class must agree on the focus of their market research i.e.
what questions they want answered.
• Decide on a method for collecting information- in this case a questionnaire.
(See appendix for sample)
• Students are divided up into groups and decide on what sample of the market
they are going to give the questionnaires to e.g. Group 1- First years, Group 2
– Second years and so on. The amount of students they interview will depend
on how many students there are in the school. For example, if there are 90 first
years (30 in each class) they should select a sample of 15 from each class to get
an over all view of first year opinions. Time would not allow all first years to be
sampled.
• A separate group will be asked to hand out the questionnaires to the staff of
the school.
• Another group of students will be set up to analyse questionnaire results to
give an overall visual presentation to show how the market responded to the
idea of producing a school magazine. This can be done with the help of the ICT
teacher and then the findings are reported back to group.
• A costing committee will be set up to source out printing costs (paper, paper
size, number of pages, black ink, colour ink) cost of use of school equipment,
etc. They will do this by phoning up or calling into local printing companies and
sourcing the best quality magazine for the best price.
• The costing committee would also take into account expenses incurred in
organising the magazine launch. See final bullet point.
• Students will seek out ads from local businesses to raise capital for the school
magazine. This will involve students drafting a letter to local businesses, calling
in, taking account of who has paid and who has not. The size and price of each
ad must be decided on by the advertising manager before this can be done.
• Students will ensure they have the correct marketing mix in place to sell the
magazine.
• Students will promote the magazine through advertising. This will involve a
poster campaign, intercom announcements, and visiting classrooms.
• In order to maximise sales, the sales team will take deposits on specified days
from interested customers.
• The Sales and Promotion team would be in charge of the Magazine launch.
This would involve them having a list of who has paid a deposit and who has
not. They would also have stewards in place for Health and Safety reasons
(members of mini-company), set up hall with a magazine stand, banners,
balloons, refreshments. Letters would also be written to Principal, Staff, Parents,
etc to inform them of this important date.

Breakdown of the unit (how timetabled)

Class contact
Two English classes per week x 14 weeks.
Two Enterprise classes per week x 14 weeks.
Independent group work activities such as market research, eliciting advertising,
conducting interviews, eliciting articles from other students, organising launch of
the magazine = approx 9 hrs
Aims
This transition unit aims to:
• enable students to work together successfully towards the production of a
school magazine
• develop skills of co-operation, communication and creativity.

Learning Outcomes
On completion of this unit students should be able to:
Enterprise classes
• conduct market research and evaluate findings
• present results in bar chart format using Excel
• identify and discuss all the steps involved in developing and selling a maga-
zine
• reflect upon and critically analyse their performance in the running of a mini-
company.
• describe all the different elements required in order to produce and sell a
school magazine
Woodwork Classes
• identify different magazine genres and their target audiences
• analyse and critique a variety of writing styles – Feature Article, Report, Re-
view, Short Story
• compose and edit their own Feature Article, Report, Review, Short Story for
target audience of teenagers
• recognise the role of good captions, headlines, images, etc.
• motivate other students to get written submissions in all genres from other
year groups, Junior and Senior, for their magazine
• critically analyse and evaluate their own work and that of their school
community, to select the best content for their magazine.
• conduct independent research using library, internet, and personal interviews.
In both classes students should be able to
• work co-operatively and effectively as part of a team
• listen to each other and be able to negotiate differences that may arise
• show a capacity to plan and work to agreed deadlines toward a common goal
• demonstrate creativity and imagination in their design of the magazine and in
their PR efforts (posters etc.).

Key skills How evidenced

information processing Viewing and analysing a wide range of magazines,

identifying their target audience and exploring the
relationship between content and target audience.
Accessing and selecting information from a variety of
sources (Internet, interview, library) for use in Feature
Article, Report, and Review Writing.
Navigate the internet to view specialist sites related to
magazine production and running of a business.
Analyse data gathered through market research and
present it using ICT (e.g. Powerpoint or Excel).

critical and creative Brainstorming creative and interesting topics on

thinking which to write articles.
Evaluating writing across a variety of genres to
distinguish between good and poor quality writing.
Composing, editing and assessing their own writing
work and the work of others
Evaluating the factors that could lead to the success of
failure of the business.
Thinking up imaginative ways of promoting and
selling the magazine.
communicating Class discussions on magazines on the market and features
appealing to teens
Oral presentations to Year Group Assemblies relating to
production of school magazine and calling for written
submissions
Producing visual P.R. posters
Conducting regular meetings to assess progress and ensure
deadlines are met
Giving feedback on submissions for the magazine from
own class and other classes
Writing articles using a variety of styles and formats taking
account of the audience and purpose.
Listen to and respect opinions of fellow students in the
business.
working with others Participate in planning meetings chaired by Editor and
Deputy Editor
Taking on responsibilities of designated roles – Editor,
Deputy Editor, etc
Learning the dynamics of group work and how to work
with others towards a common goal
Being able to listen to other points of view and reaching a
consensus so that the work can move on
Reflecting on one’s contribution to the group.
being personally Planning all stages of production of magazine
effective Monitoring progress along the way
Taking responsibility for certain tasks and showing reliability
in getting the task done to an agreed deadline
Ensuring that the magazine is completed for date agreed
with printers
Motivating any group members who are falling behind.
Receiving and responding to feedback from Editors.
Reflecting on and evaluating own and group performance

Learning approaches
• Class discussions
• Presentations
• Pair work
• Group work
• Individual work
• Independent learning/research
• Guest speakers
• Use of I.C.T.
Assessment approaches
Self, peer and teacher assessment of written work.
Students might select their best work for a Portfolio showing examples of written
work, interviews, business plan, etc (to be assessed by both teachers).

Evaluation methods
On completion students will be asked to evaluate the overall Transition Unit and
suggest modifications and improvements for future teaching.

Resources
English class:
Writing Workshop Second Edition – A Student’s Guide to the Craft of
Writing by Richard Mc Roberts
Language, Literature, Style – Padraic Nolan, John Sheil
Studies in Language – John Jennings
Words, Comprehension and Composition – Dorthea Finan
101 Ways to Improve your Word Power – Hugh Enfield
Language in Focus – John Sheil
The good web guide edited by Michelle Clare © 2001, The Good Web Guide Ltd
Find it on the Internet – Kye Valongo
Magazines
Newspapers
Worksheets prepared by teacher

Enterprise class
Junior Certificate Business book
Leaving Certificate Business book
County Enterprise Board
Microsoft Publisher
It’s the Business for Transition Year- Darina Regan and Hilda O’ Malley
The Transition Year ‘Get up and Go’ programme

Some useful websites

www.skool.ie
www.scoilnet.ie for quick access to newspaper front pages
www.unison.ie for national newspapers front pages

www.writingservices.eu/Magazines-Business-Writing-Services.htm
http://ty.slss.ie/mini_minT.html mini company get up and go programme can be
downloaded here
http://enterpriseencounter.slss.ie

http://www.ncsu.edu/midlink/ho.html For examples of rubrics or google rubrics.

The use of the inverted pyramid in Journalism related sites
http://www.teachervision.fen.com/journalism/writing/6042.html

Visual aid for inverted pyramid

http://www.gearupchicago.org/Tutorials/WritingForWeb/Important.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_writing
Appendix 1
SCHOOL MAGAZINE QUESTIONNAIRE
I am a Transition Year student in _____________________________________. We
are publishing a school-magazine as our mini company. We would like you to please
answer the following questions. This survey will be kept completely confidential and
we hope that you will fill it out honestly.
(PLEASE TICK THE BOX)
Do you read magazines? YES( ) NO( )

How often do you buy magazines?

Every day ( ) Every week ( ) Every month( ) Every year( )
Would you be interested in buying a school magazine?
YES( ) NO( )
How much would you pay for a school magazine?
€5( ) €7 ( ) €10( )
Which time would be most suitable to buy the magazine?
8:40-9:00 ( ) 11:00-11:15 ( ) 1:00-2:00 ( ) 4:00-4:15 ( )
Would you be interested in entering a short story competition?
YES ( ) NO ( )
How much would you pay to enter the short story competition?
50c ( ) 75c ( ) €1 ( )
Would you be interested in entering a Christmas themed art competition?
YES ( ) NO ( )
How much would you pay to enter a Christmas themed art competition?
€1 ( ) €2 ( ) €3 ( )
Where outside the school should we sell the magazine?
(please explain your answer)

Do you have any ideas for a fun Christmas recipe?

(please explain your answer)

Do you have any suggestions as to what else you would like to see in our
magazine?
(please explain your answer)