Bona fide text
Honing our journalistic skills
Teacher Cheza Plondaya and I were privileged to attend the Regional Training for School Paper Advisers and Consultants held at Iloilo Grand Hotel on November 23-24, 2007.
The said training included lectures from competent resource speakers, Ms. Hazel Villa (News and Editorial Writing), Ms. Diosa Labiste (Feature Writing), Mr. Niño Mana-og (Sports Writing), and Mr. Eugene Mallorca and Mr. John Arnold Shiena (Copy Reading, Headline Writing and Lay-outing).
Around 211 participants coming from various private and public schools of Iloilo City, Iloilo Province, Aklan, Antique, Capiz, and Negros attended the training facilitated by Sir Jude Thaddaeus Iledan, Education Supervisor-II, English.
The 2-day "refresher" for advisers and consultants also includes writeshop every after the lecture of the speaker. "Feeling estudyante man ko sang nagakasulat ko considering the tips I've learned from the speaker," said Ma'am Myrna from Aklan, a new found friend in the training.
Attending seminars like this, not only teach you new strategies or improving your knowledge but also allows you to meet other advisers from other schools and learn from them. The chance of befriending and knowing your colleagues is a plus factor we can acquire from the said seminar.
The awarding of winners on the last day highlighted the event. Sir Jude mentioned that giving of awards to the advisers and consultants who did well in the writeshops boost our morale and motivate us to do better as mentors of our respective school paper.
FYI, the contest entries were divided into three categories; the first timers (advisers who are new in the field), the beginners (advisers who already have two years of experience) and the seasoned (advisers who are well-versed in coaching journalistic skills amongst student writers).
St. Joseph School's "The Yellow Bird" adviser Teacher Cheza bagged 7thPlace in Editorial Writing, 8thPlace in News Writing in the Seasoned Category and received "The Quill Award" as one of the outstanding mentors. On the other hand, my news write-up landed as a runner up and luckily my entries in editorial and feature both ranked first place in the Beginners Category.
Winning first place in two categories is overwhelming on my part. I never expected such but indeed I felt so happy that the judges recognized my write-ups.
We learned a lot from our resource speakers and definitely we are going to pass on to our student editors the tips and good points they've taught us. We are lucky to be part of the training and in behalf of Teacher Cheza, I say thank you to our dear Directress, Mrs. Maria Lourdes Josefina I. Garcia for her undying support and of course to our Assistant Principal, Teacher Lea Manejero for always being there for us. Again, thank you so much.
I'll take this opportunity to say thank you to THE NEWS TODAY for giving me a chance to be a part of the most promising newspaper in Iloilo. And to all of you my masugod na tagasubaybay for always reading and appreciating my write-up every Wednesday.
In one way or another, you my dear readers are honing my skills in writing.