Students in Lacey Degener’s fourth grade class at Gladbrook-Reinbeck Elementary School in Reinbeck pictured on Wednesday, Oct. 25 giving Tama-Grundy Publishing reporter Ruby McAllister (not pictured) a thumbs up following her visit to the classroom as part of their social studies learning this fall. PHOTO BY RUBY F. MCALLISTER

REINBECK – As part of their social studies learning this school year, Gladbrook-Reinbeck fourth graders spent part of a recent Wednesday afternoon exploring how a journalist might approach a story by welcoming a working newspaper reporter to their classroom.

Students in teachers Lacey Degener and Lindsay Plett’s fourth grade classes have been hard at work this term learning about different viewpoints or ‘lenses.’

“[They’re learning] how those lenses might lead to different questions or perspectives,” Greg Tessendorf, G-R’s K-12 instructional coach who has been working with the fourth grade team, explained.

As part of the unit, students will explore how an individual would view different sets of events including the Industrial Revolution, Great Depression, Dust Bowl, and agricultural changes based on whether they were a geographer, an economist, a historian, a political scientist, or a journalist.

Tama-Grundy reporter/news editor Ruby McAllister visited with both fourth grade classes on October 25 in order to share her experiences putting together the Sun Courier, North Tama Telegraph, and Tama-Toledo News Chronicle newspapers each week.

Students in Lindsay Plett’s fourth grade class at Gladbrook-Reinbeck Elementary School in Reinbeck pictured on Wedneday, Oct. 25 following Tama-Grundy Publishing reporter Ruby McAllister’s visit during which they learned more about how a journalist approaches their work. PHOTO BY RUBY F. MCALLISTER

During McAllister’s visit, the students learned that while it is always a reporter’s job to answer the basic questions (who, what, where, when), probing the ‘Why?’ and the ‘How?’ of an event/situation/issue tends to be the most important when it comes to informing the public.

Both Mrs. Plett and Mrs. Degener’s classes were exceptionally well-behaved during McAllister’s visit and asked many insightful questions, leading the reporter to believe a future journalist – or two or three – could most definitely be among the G-R fourth grade classrooms.

So now here’s an assignment for those students, did McAllister answer all the important questions when writing up this story? If not, send her an email at rbodeker@northtamatelegraph.com and she’ll be certain to print an update and/or a correction in next week’s issue!