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I would be interested in advice from anyone who started a club in h.s. or whose child started one in high school.

My soph son and some of his friends are interested in starting a club that would produce a literary magazine. They plan to approach a teacher about this who also seems interested in assisting with such a project.

What can help projects like this work? What are things definitely not to do?

One problem that I saw students run into when I worked with college students was that they would think of ideas that were very grandiose -- complex, costly and time consuming. Once faced with having to implement their ideas, the students would become overwhelmed and then would give up.

Any suggestions, too, about how parents like me might be able to help?

By Chinaman (Chinaman) on Tuesday, January 06, 2004 - 11:58 am: Edit

For literary mgazine first try to contact local newspaper if they can allow them to write. If quality is good, they will be able to publish for local newspaper. My son does it for a prestigios paper since junior high. Now he is a featured columnlist for newspaper. It is cheaper to go to newspaper provided what you write is good (research as well as style). Hope this helps.

Cheapest orgnization to start is a musical chorus group (cappela).

There are so many opportunities. good luck to your son

By Northstarmom (Northstarmom) on Tuesday, January 06, 2004 - 12:34 pm: Edit

Chinaman,
I could hug you for your good advice! I will pass it along to my younger son. I think that our weekly paper would be willing to help them.

I am so glad that you posted. Believe it or not, my older son for about 6 years was a columnist for our weekly paper. Once my older son graduated from h.s. and moved away, though, the paper hasn't had another youth page, even though the publisher is very willing to have kids write for the paper.

Thanks so much for reminding me about this opportunity!

Best of luck to your son with his journalism career!

By Chinaman (Chinaman) on Tuesday, January 06, 2004 - 01:07 pm: Edit

Northstar mom thanks. Ny son is still in a high school. He loves writing. I gave you advice based on my son's idea.

By Northstarmom (Northstarmom) on Tuesday, January 06, 2004 - 01:21 pm: Edit

Chinaman,
Since your son obviously is an excellent writer, do be aware that regardless of what he plans to major in in college, his being an excellent writer will boost his chances of college acceptance and of getting merit aid.

Many merit scholarships require essays, and due to your son's journalism work, he should have good chances of writing excellent essays. Should he plan to major in journalims, there also are a fair number of scholarships for aspiring young journalists. If he happens to be Asian (guessing this because of your name), Asians are URMs when it comes to journalism. The Asian American Journalism Association among other places offers nice scholarships to aspiring young journalists.

Even if he plans to enter a field like the sciences, though, his being a good writer will be a big plus. Too often, students wishing to enter the sciences have excellent math/science skills, but don't have the writing skills necessary to do the clearly written research papers that they would be required to do in college.

By Soozievt (Soozievt) on Tuesday, January 06, 2004 - 01:24 pm: Edit

Northstarmom, yes, that advice from Chinaman about the kids submitting to the local paper is an excellent one. In addition, they still could pursue their literary magazine idea at school, particularly if they found a teacher to be a supervisor of the group. Once they get it started, they can brainstorm if they need any financial help. One would be to go to the principal to see if any funds exist. But they likely could raise some funds as well for their expenses. Some of it is just how much of a go getter the kids who initiate the activity are. I think they will get it going under their drive and intiative, with some adult support.

When you asked about starting clubs, at first I thought, no, we do not have that experience (clubs are not as much of an EC here as I have read of others' ECs on these forums). Then I realized, wait, my younger one has initiated a big activity just this year (I never thought of it as a club that's all) and in fact, it is coming to the climax this week! But this same process really is not all that different than a kid who has an idea for a literary magazine.

She is into musical theater. Our school happens to put on an excellent play each fall and a musical each spring (which she has been in). But she really wanted to run her own musical in ADDITION to what the school runs (we even have a professional actor with Bdway credits who comes in to direct the musical here). First, my D (who was still 14 at the time) wanted to produce and direct Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along which was such a huge ambition as that is a very difficult musical to do though she loves it. She had big plans. But she realized that she needed more lead time than she was giving herself which was two months before casting and that she was unsure of what getting the rights would entail plus how to pay for those, etc. She then decided to change her plans a bit and decided to create a musical revue show. She is in this cabaret troupe every summer at her theater program out of state and it is quite an intense professional level experience where they perform at resort hotels. It happens to be the highlight of her summers. Anyway, she knows what that involves. So, she went to the principal and music dept. head and told them of her plans to run a musical at school between the fall play and before the rehearsals for the spring musical commenced. She got their blessing. She then focused on contemporary Broadway and came up with 20 production numbers and we either owned the sheet music for them or she bought them. She contacted 10 other kids at the school who are very passionate about musical theater and are basically the talented kids in this area at our school and got them to committ (even wrote a committal letter of the plans). She created an individualized libretto for each child based on which numbers that child was in. She recorded a CD of every number and made each child a copy. She met with everyone and had already had plans of who was performing what (a show where there is no star, where each kid is featured, numerous solos, duets, small group and whole cast numbers) and was open to all their ideas but the kids asked for her plans and all adopted her plans of the score and who performed them. She is directing the show. She has taken on all of the organization of the group, sending out notices of rehearsals and all the details and plans. She has taken on musical direction and the choreography. She has taken care of publicity, lining up sets, lighting, costumes, sound, and got an instrumental ensemble to do the show. In fact, yesterday, the kids got permission to be out of classes all day for a full day of tech and my hubby actually went to school all day cause she got him to play guitar in the show and so they added the musicians this week cause the show opens in two days. My daughter consulted the cast about making the show a benefit and suggested to the Amercian Cancer Society cause of our recent experience of my dad dying of cancer during the rehearsal period (my dad knew she was giving the funds to this). To raise money, she has had kids secure ads for the program, plus they sold refreshments at the fall play. My daughter designed the program which my other daughter volunteered to make all the copies of today. The entire production has been student run. Adults were not involved. Supposedly there was to be an adult on the premises during all rehearsals and I guess usually music staff were at school in the department most afternoons and they got permission to go in on weekends. So, yes ,they need adults to ok the plans or to oversee but in this case, I would say that close to 100% of the entire thing is all the kids with no adults. The local TV station is taping the show to put on TV as well. So, if the kids have drive and intitiative, they can do a similar sort of thing to make their literary magazine a reality. Yes, an administrator at the school or teacher must ok the plan and formally act as a supervisor of the group. But as in this case, it can be completely student run. I will admit, it can be a HUGE undertaking. My child has basically taken on the whole job herself of running this and it is the job that normally several adults would do, and of course she has all her other ECs and schoolwork to do. But if kids are passionate about something, they will go after creating opportunities. The rest of the cast is very grateful of this opportunity to do this show. They are very into it. Each kid is being featured and they can sing sophisticated songs. The weird thing is that my daughter who recently turned 15 is younger than the entire cast....she is directing some 18 year old boys in fact. Nobody seems to mind. I cannot wait to see the results of this project. But it is overtaking our family this week for sure.

I hope your son can take this plan to other kids who are interested and then hold a meeting to share ideas and get that teacher in on it. The submission to newspapers is also a good idea and a little less of organizing a major project. It may be a good place to begin and then do the bigger project a bit down the line.

Susan

By Aparent4 (Aparent4) on Tuesday, January 06, 2004 - 01:36 pm: Edit

You mention that some of your son's friends are interested. That a new organization has a constituency like this is important in our hs when a student goes to the admin trying to get funds. It creates momentum. So I would highlight that.

By Northstarmom (Northstarmom) on Tuesday, January 06, 2004 - 01:54 pm: Edit

Susan,
I am amazed at what your daughter is doing! What exaceptional motivation, independence, organizational and networking skills she has! And she's just 15!!!!!

Should she happen to have the grades,curriculum and potential scores that put her even in the bottom range of successful Harvard aps (3.0, 1200), please take a close look at my alma mater. Your D's way of operating is exactly what Harvard hopes to find in its applicants.

Also look up producer Peter Sellers (not the actor. I'm taking about the Peter Sellers who worked with the Kennedy Center). He is a Harvard grad who as an undergrad did exactly the kind of things that Harvard hopes that students will do in its environment, which offers zillions of possibilities for self starters.

Among other things, Peter, in a burst of creativity that foreshadowed the creativity he later demonstrated as a theater professional, staged a version of Macbeth or Hamlet in the underground tunnels under one of the dorms. I think only 12 people could go to each performance because the area was so small.

Incidentally, even though Harvard lacks a theater major, there are about 60 student-run theater performances there a year.

I wish I knew your D! What a neat kid! I'd love to see the performance. And what a difference between how she's doing ECs compared to how kids do them whose main purpose in ECs is decorating their resumes!

By Chinaman (Chinaman) on Tuesday, January 06, 2004 - 02:16 pm: Edit

Northstar mom I will support him to be whatever he dreams. I want him to be happy. This is his life and he has to live with it. So far his plan keep changing from medicine to law.

As you can see from my writing that I a have bare minimum skills. I have seen in real life that communication skills are the most desirable traits which people overlook in school. I have not a vertical movement in my career as English is a second language to me. Thus I would say math and scince are fine but writing skills are must.

By Chinaman (Chinaman) on Tuesday, January 06, 2004 - 02:22 pm: Edit

Oh I forgot, like soozie's daughter. My son helps in writing for two organizations (one environmental and one political). In addition he received scholarships in writing. We are very fortunate to send him to prep school on 100% free tution (courtsey of writing and scince-math skills).

By Garland (Garland) on Tuesday, January 06, 2004 - 02:24 pm: Edit

Soozie, are the initials of that Broadway actor KM?

By Northstarmom (Northstarmom) on Tuesday, January 06, 2004 - 02:27 pm: Edit

Chinaman,
Your son is very fortunate to have such a loving dad who is so supportive of his dreams! I hope we'll keep seeing you on these boards. It's nice to get to know you.

Congrats on your son's prep school scholarship and on his other scholarships!

By Soozievt (Soozievt) on Tuesday, January 06, 2004 - 02:28 pm: Edit

Thanks Northstarmom...
While I know there are great theater opportunties at some fine universities, like Harvard and Yale, she seems bent on going to major in musical theater. Actually a graduate of her summer program, Natalie Portman, went to Harvard, so some go that type of route. We have not really begun any college process with her as of yet...I mean she just turned 15 and as you know, doing this with just one child has been a ton of work. My older one did not start to look into college til fall of junior year and at that time began to think about possible majors/careers. Unlike that, my younger one has had this career ambition since nursery school (her nursery narrative report card even talks about her going onto Broadway, lol) and she did her first show at a theater while still only 4 1/2. Her interest has not ever wavered but has only intensified. She is driven. She was always well rounded like the older one, as they both did several sports and several areas of the performing arts. But during middle school, the younger one gave up her sports cause she got into even larger committments in the performing arts, whereas my older one has one foot in performing arts and one is sports and did not give up in any of her passions.

As far as the person at the Kennedy Center, do you mean he directs a youth program there now? Not sure what you meant exactly. One of my D's friends from her summer theater camp who lives in the DC area did a program last summer at the Kennedy Center after just a three week session at my daughter's theater program in NY (my daughter stays 6 weeks, this other girl just 3 but she also is currently a high school senior). Ironically, my daughter performed at the Kennedy Center in 2001 with the National Symphony which was one of her highlights so far in her young life coming from a little rural town in Vermont. She was to have done that same show at the Mostly Mozart Festival that summer at Lincoln Center, her debut so to speak on a NY city stage but close to the show, the orchestra went on strike and the series was cancelled.

Right now, she is saying she does not want to go to the kind of school her sister is looking at (so likely will not consider Harvard...though Grandma went to Radcliffe and I went to Harvard Grad school). A girl my daughter has performed with in Vermont is currently at Yale and in fact is a person my senior visited with at Yale and this girl has an amazing voice and is doing a bunch of theater at Yale and my younger daughter also knows kids from her summer program going to Yale and in shows there too. I just think she is very set on going into a musical theater degree program. While my older one had no clue of certain colleges at her age, this one has been talking of certain colleges for years already. The reason is (I believe) cause the majority of her friends in summer (at theater camp) are older than herself and many have since gone onto college and many are entering next fall. So, she knows where they have gone and seems to want to follow in their footsteps. Right now, while she knows kids at all the top theater college programs, she knows over a dozen at NYU Tisch and she seems to have her heart set on that (though it is so hard to get in). She keeps seeing kids get in that she knows and she can compare herself (on stage) to them and feels this sense that she can do it too. This past week she was in Florida with a dozen friends from theater camp (some live down there, some were visiting like herself) and the house she stayed at (with 17 yr. old friend) also has a daughter who went for years and years to my D's camp who now attends NYU Tisch's Cap 21 program (musical theater studio) and this girl was what one would call the camp diva....the leads in the shows and so forth. My daughter has followed her (even sings her old solo in their cabaret) and got to talk to her a bit about the program, plus with another older girl from Colorado who was down there. So, she already has exposure through all these friends. One of her summer roomies just got into Tisch. So, already this is a big influence. We will have to explore the whole gamut. The options are going to schools that simply have a theater program (she says no), schools like Harvard that have a lot of theater opportunities (says no), a college with a musical theater program (like Tisch at NYU) or a conservatory (like CCM or Boston). Have not begun to cross that bridge.

I do believe that when kids are interested in something, they pursue it and not to look good for college. I think your son is obviously into the literary magazine project and has some friends who would like to be a part of that. Same thing with my kid initating the student run musical. My other daughter has done the same thing within student government. She felt strongly on an issue, wrote a school policy, led this intitiative (most of the time alone) for two years, including presenting to the faculty adn eventually to the school board til they recently adopted it for school policy (it is establishing a weighted GPA but it will not affect her year but starts with her sister's year). She feels strongly on another issue (homework) and has researched homework policies across the nation (our school does not have one) as she did w/ the weighted GPA policy and in fact, today after school is her formal presentation before the entire faculty (had a previous one with dept. heads). I think kids can and will create opportunities if they either have a passion for it or have some drive over something that matters to them. It is so different than doing something for the college resume. I see your son as wanting to do this magazine and I believe he can make it happen by creating the opportunity. They may be able to raise funds by selling ads in the magazine. Nothing is really impossible if you are driven. It does take a lot of time, however!!!

Also in regard to my 15 year old, she is someone who really could pursue anything as she is an excellent student, all the usual stuff like all As, most rigorous curriculum, tests well, gifted intellectually, heavily involved in ECs, the whole bit. Frankly she excels as a writer. But her passion is theater and there is no way to stand in her way and while some might say how difficult it is to make it in that field (and it surely surely is), one cannot stand in the way of someone's dreams. She has the talent honestly but it will be a very difficult road to her goals. I think it might be best to do a musical theater program in a university, such as NYUs as opposed to strictly a conservatory (like Boston conservatory) cause she will also have a degree and I know if someday she does not have a career in theater, she will still have an education and I know there are many things she could do cause of her ability in other areas. But for now, theater is her aim in life.
Susan

By Soozievt (Soozievt) on Tuesday, January 06, 2004 - 02:33 pm: Edit

Garland, no the person who directs our musicals at our high school was on Broadway but is not famous or anything. His initials are PB and he lives up the road from us here. He once starred on a soap opera as did his wife. But they divorced and he chose to give it all up to live here in our Vermont town and raise his daughter (who was just in preschool at the time but is now 12) on his own. He is involved in performing arts here but no longer on Broadway, etc.

Susan
PS...congrats to Chinaman's son on those scholarships and accomplishments!

By Northstarmom (Northstarmom) on Tuesday, January 06, 2004 - 02:38 pm: Edit

Peter Sellers is or was, I think, director of producer of the major Kennedy Center productions. He works or worked directly for the Kennedy Center and is very well known in the theater field.

Fascinating, very creative guy. I'm not that familiar with the intracacies of the theater field, but I got to meet him at a Harvard meeting where he talked about how Harvard influenced him. He seemed like a really cool person. I also remember a NY Times or Wash post profile about him about 6 years ago.

By Soozievt (Soozievt) on Tuesday, January 06, 2004 - 02:44 pm: Edit

Northstarmom, he sounds like an incredible guy. I suppose if someday down the line my daughter does not end up to be a performer as her profession, there is that other end of the field as Mr. Sellers went on to. I do not know him. My daughter's show at the Kennedy Center was under the auspices of the National Symphony so different producers we had to deal with for that job. Still was amazing to have the experience of performing on that stage. Maybe I will look up Mr. Sellers to read about him since you mentioned him.
Susan

By Marite (Marite) on Tuesday, January 06, 2004 - 03:47 pm: Edit

It's Peter Sellars, not Sellers. He was an enfant terrible at Harvard and went on to be an avant-garde director of works such as Nixon in China.

Northstarmom is right, though, about the performing opportunities at Harvard (through, among others, the American Repertory Theater).

By Ariesathena (Ariesathena) on Tuesday, January 06, 2004 - 04:42 pm: Edit

North:

I did a lit magazine in high school and started an unrelated club. Your son needs to:

*Find an English teacher to support this as an advisor
*Get a staff together and assign duties
*See if they can use a Xerox machine for free - copies of poems and stories should be distributed during meetings
*If the kids are too young to drive, they need to meet at the school - this involves a) setting up a meeting time and b) getting permission to use a classroom
*My lit magazine was funded by sales of the magazine: $1 for students, $2 for teachers. We also did fundraisers (if you would like, email me and I can describe in more detail). Now, this will fund the magazine after sales, but printing costs ran us about $600 for our 25 page, glossy magazines (maybe about 500 of them?). Your son will need to either do fundraising in advance to pay for printing, then sell the magazine, or will need to secure a small amount of funding from the school
*On that topic, they should not drain the magazine fund dry at any time. They should always seek to recoup their printing costs through sales and fundraisers so that there is enough $ to print a magazine the following year.
*A good guidance counselor can help enormously with the process in terms of helping your son through it
*Is there a National Honors Society at your school? Some of them use lit magazines as community service (as it enhances the school), so they may be able to help out with the project. Beware though, as many NHSs are resume padding.

By Northstarmom (Northstarmom) on Tuesday, January 06, 2004 - 06:40 pm: Edit

Arlesathena,
Thanks so much for your informative post! I just shared it with my son. He had talked to an English teacher today about advising the magazine, and she'd asked him to give her more specific ideas about it. Your suggestions help a lot.

So that others could also benefit, please post info here about the fundraisers, including how long it took to raise the $ to produce the first magazine.

How long did it take to produce the first magazine -- from the start of the magazine until the first issue came up? How did students divide the duties?

What guidelines were there for submissions? Any problems with these?

By Bobmcc (Bobmcc) on Tuesday, January 06, 2004 - 06:53 pm: Edit

in re magazines - you can always go w/ an ezine and save a lot of money.