The Robert W. Greene Summer Institute for High School Journalists is our summer program aimed at developing student journalists – and this year we had our largest group ever of 21 students. We held the students to some high standards – They produced nine videos, 12 stories, 21 bios and seemingly endless amounts of photos. For many, it was their first foray outside the writing realm of journalism.

We had the students blog, just like last year, about their experiences, and this year, we added a Twitter hashtag to the mix.

All told, we had 477 unique visitors visit the site for 7,300 hits in one week. Wow. Looks like the students were roping in more than just their parents.

I never met Bob Greene, though I wish I had. This type of program is something I’ve heard from those who knew him that he wanted to create before he died in 2008. I hope and think he would be as proud of this group as I am. I’ve been involved with high school journalism programs when I was a graduate student at Syracuse University, and now for three of the four years the Stony Brook University School of Journalism has run the RWG program. The success of these programs is real. The engagement RWG fosters in student journalists is real. The product produced is real. I’m so glad I was able to help make it happen. I wish the opportunity existed when I was in high school to come to this institute.

It’s amazing that we’re able to offer this program free (through some generous donations from our sponsors and our faculty) to a diverse set of students from across Long Island. If you’re interested in helping, you can, too.

In the meantime, enough from me, head on over to www.greenegazette.com/2012 and check out the stories.

A note about Journographica

The new Greene Gazette site is the first to run the finished version of a new child theme I’ve created for many of our school’s sites. Suffice to say, all of that coding (along with some Final Cut Pro X and Premiere self-training) is the reason for the lack of updates on Journographica.com, but expect some major upgrades, more posts and a fresh coat of paint to this site soon.