Last fall, Champlain College offered a course in magazine publishing as part of its professional writing program. The 11 students in the class accomplished all the tasks that writers and editors do: determining the tone of the publication, developing story ideas for short articles and longer features, writing and editing articles, design pages and proofread texts.
But even in a hands-on class like this, the teacher has the power to decide. Kim MacQueeneditor-in-chief of Champlain College Publishing Center, developed and taught the course — and came up with the magazine’s theme: health and wellness. So, as a first step, the students in the class – coincidentally all girls – had to think about what wellbeing meant to them and how to approach a high-profile topic.
“It was quite funny,” recalls Grace Safford, a sophomore from Elmore. “Half the room was like, ‘Yeah, I’m ready to write about that.’ The other half were like, ‘Dude, I hate yoga.'”
After discussions and exchanges of ideas, the entire group showed interest, Safford said. “When we came together and had a common definition and erased the stereotypes that wellness was kale and yoga, people were happy,” she said. “In the end, everyone really loved the idea of writing about wellness.”
This enthusiasm and interest is evident in GOOD, the 48-page publication that the students produced under MacQueen’s direction. The articles in the magazine – subtitled “A lifestyle magazine for young adults” – are engaging and well-written, tackling familiar issues such as seasonal affective disorder (SAD), as well as lesser-known topics such as video game apps healthy. THE GOOD offers some quick recipes to prepare during exam week and includes a list of health resources. The digital version of the magazine is now online; a printed version will be published next month.
MacQueen said she wanted the class to “emulate an editorial hierarchy.” In developing the course, she said she was initially unsure whether to “dictate” the theme of the magazine “or let students have that freedom to act.”
“I decided that ultimately it would help us move faster and accomplish a lot more if students could focus, rather than guessing everything from scratch,” MacQueen continued. “They really took the opportunity to redefine (wellness) for themselves… (It) was a really organic process.”
Each student presented three ideas for a 500-word article and selected one to write about. Of these shorter articles, a few were chosen for more in-depth coverage, giving students the opportunity to report, write and edit long-form articles.
Safford produced a paper on service dogs — an idea that came to him when a college friend arrived on campus with one.
“I was very curious about the whole process, but I noticed that I didn’t know how to approach him and ask him about service dogs,” Safford said. “What’s the etiquette on this? What do I say? What should I do?”
She chose to attend Champlain for its writing program, after honing her skills as a high school sophomore at Peoples Academy in Morrisville, where she produced a 50-page grammar guide as an independent study. “It snowballed from there,” Safford said of his interest in editing.
Maina Chen, a senior from Brooklyn, New York, led the editorial team and worked as editor of Safford’s paper. She was impressed by the supportive and collaborative nature of the course, Chen said, as well as the students’ ability to create a product over the course of the semester.
“It was actually kind of fun,” she said. “I didn’t realize what was ahead of me because I’d never taken an editing class before, but I’m actually proud that we’ve gotten this far.”
Senior Kiera Hufford of Trumansburg, NY, wrote about SAD. She knew a student who had experienced it and thought the subject would be timely. Through her work at the college’s Center for Publishing, where she serves as associate editor, Hufford worked over winter break to finalize production of the magazine.
“I’m very happy with it,” she said. “I think all the content is really well written and I’m proud of the writers there. All the story ideas were really great and were very well executed.”
MacQueen said the opportunity to develop the course was a “wonderful gift”. She plans to offer it again in the fall.
As for the first class, she said: “I was lucky. These 11 wonderful young women came to take it and they asked amazing questions. They worked together to learn and create this wonderful thing. It was an absolute joy to teach.”
