Accountability Tools
Responsibility can be challenging to learn and incorporate into one's life. As an advisor, you will guide students to be responsible for their work through a system of accountability as individuals and corporately as a group. You will guide students to share ownership, behave respectfully, and listen actively. You will partner with the students, give them choices in learning styles, and provide relevant material and strategies to keep them accountable to each other. The system also provides parameters for you.
The following are steps to direct you.
Course Overview, Expectations, and Syllabus
The syllabus is the foundation of the system of accountability. This core document displays the learning goals and how they will be accomplished through grading policies and expectations. Make it fun and use games, like bingo or word search, to familiarize yourself.
The Style Guide
To ensure consistency throughout the yearbook, incorporate the Style Guide, the most important accountability tool. The entire staff creates the style guide. As the year progresses, if there are questions that need to be resolved, the style guide is the reference to turn to first! These parts comprise the style guide:
Appearance:
Theme & Style/Vibe (i.e., Theme Surfer Culture & Style/Vibe 60s)
Color Palette (3-5 Colors that can be used in different combinations depending on the section)
Typography (3 font styles that can switch dominance depending on the section)
Credit for Photographs
Credit for Page Spread Design
Pagination
Layout (alignments, spacing, photographs/graphics vs. text, visual hierarchy)
Writing: (consider using the AP Style Gude as your baseline editorial guide)
Voice & Tone: What will the readers feel?
What is the identity?
What words and phrases project the identity?
What words and phrases should be limited or not used at all?
Agree on format and examine bullet points, hyphens, and quotes in captions and stories.
A Shared Calendar
A great task for your yearbook class is to create an online calendar with events to be covered and by whom. The official school calendar, individual planners, the athletic calendar, and weekly announcements, are part of the online calendar. Once contributions have been submitted, have staff select which events they want to cover. Also, prepare for substitutions that may be needed. Have them prepare a plan and procedure. Every person needs contact numbers. Editors must send email reminders through the online calendar. Use the board in the classroom to post weekly events.
A Photograph Storage System
Before photos become out of control and unorganized, create a shared folder on Google Workspace, and utilize Google tools with your students so they are familiar. Within this space, assign editors to create event folders, each with unique URLs that can be shared with anyone who needs access. Use these to collect photos from coaches, family members, students in the community, and events not covered by yearbook staff and friends. The Google history feature is an excellent accountability.
The Ladder
As mentioned previously, the Ladder spreadsheet is a flexible and manageable visual reminder of each student's accountability. It connotates the yearbook topics by page number and details who is responsible for the page. Page spread assignments and deadlines are listed side by side, and editors have a place for comments. When deadlines are met, you strikethrough the item and it displays how close the book is to completion. What a valuable tool!
Accountability is a process, and if there is progress by the end of the year, it is successful! There will be times when you need to reset, reevaluate, and reorganize. Do not be disheartened but encouraged by this because the result is growth!
United Yearbook Printing supports these solid practices throughout the year, not only at the beginning, and is available to assist you. Subscribe to our blog, podcast, and newsletter. Visit our website at www.unitedyearbook.net, or schedule a one-on-one consultation with our representatives.
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Editor: Donna Ladner obtained a B.A. in Education and a minor in English from California Baptist University, and a M.S. in ESL from USC, Los Angeles. After she married Daniel, their family moved to Indonesia with a non-profit organization and lived cross-culturally for 15 years before returning to the U.S in 2012. Donna has been working as an editor and proofreader for TSE Worldwide Press and its subsidiary, United Yearbook since 2015.
Contributor: Lucy McHugh comes to United Yearbook Printing from a 39-year career in public and private school education. She was a former visual art teacher and yearbook adviser. She received a Bachelors of Science in Art from Columbia College in Columbia, SC, a Masters in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Nebraska in 2000, and in 2014 earned a Certificate in Catholic School Leadership from Loyola Marymount University. Lucy enjoys her family, making art and gardening.
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