The Process for Developing, Writing, and Editing a Juice Current Events Article for Students
When a reader logs into The Juice, they get immediate access to five thoroughly-researched and meticulously-written articles a day, curated specifically to inspire a vested interest in understanding our world and analyzing it with a discerning, critical eye. Each is written to inform, entertain, and generate conversation. And though The Juice is always pressing to deliver the freshest content possible, we take our content seriously enough to send each story, each topic through a rigorous screening, ensuring that every aspect is worthy of the most important sets of eyes we can imagine: those of young learners.
So how does an article make the cut? It starts in the editorial room, where our team of educators — who have more than four decades of classroom experience combined — join journalists who are former senior staff writers for major metropolitan newspapers to collaborate on pitching, dissecting, and synthesizing the day’s news.
As the content team’s senior educator and writer, my day starts with a sweeping dive into the top news stories of the day. I scour the headlines of more than a dozen of the most reputable news sources, including those based in the United States and abroad. I also sneak a peek at academic journals, STEM-skill reports, and local/regional news sources, homing in on topics both vital and exciting. In every case, I consider the story through the lens of what will most engage students, drawing from my 22 years teaching everything from elementary school to college English courses.
Once I’ve got my “pitch list,” I bring it to the content team to share. This is one of my favorite parts of the process, since I get to compare my take on the news with the diverse perspectives of my teammates. Each pitch, both mine and theirs, gets rolled around in the tumbler of those perspectives. They get questioned, challenged, analyzed, and trimmed, until we’ve got it polished into a story that will shine for students. Often, we’ve got dozens a day that we think could make the cut.
Only five can, though.
With our issue locked in, the focus turns to research. Let’s say I’m writing an article on climate change’s effect on the growth of poison ivy. I know readers will want the skinny on how this story made that day’s news in the first place. If a new study was published about it, I read that study. Then I read analyses of that study. After that, it’s devouring every major news outlet’s reporting on the topic, making sure that The Juice’s pared-down and focused version is delivering readers the story with the same kind of fair and accurate journalistic integrity they would get from the most thoroughly-vetted sources.
With the content nailed down, I get to play sculptor, chiseling away at all that information until it’s crafted into something worthy of a learner’s time. With every sentence, I’m asking myself if our readers will find the story engaging, informative, thought provoking … and, due in no small part to personal pride, grammatically and syntactically accurate. Have I connected poison ivy to the personal experiences of our readers? Have I adequately explained what makes poison ivy a danger in the first place? Have I clearly shown the “why” and the “how” of each experiment that informed the initial study? And did I somehow manage to get it into 250 or so words? That’s the goal.
Of course, any writer is only as good as his editors, and that’s where the team comes back into play. Every Juice article gets put through the proverbial editorial wringer by our journalists and educators. A story draft faces its first test in 11/12 edits, when a journalist gives the most complex reading level a thorough scouring for accuracy, clarity, and readability. Any changes go back to the author for approval. If it’s good to go, we “level” it — that is, another team member, one of our experienced educators, tweaks the sentence structures, vocabulary, and concept complexity to make the story more approachable for grades 9/10, 7/8, and 5/6. From there, it’s another round of edits, then we upload it to the publication platform.
But wait, there’s more!
Just in case a stray comma made it through the cracks (or a late-breaking press conference added nuance to the news), we run a round of final edits on the whole issue. Only when we’ve checked every vocab entry, updated every Extra Juice, and tested the rigor of each comprehension question is an issue ready for publication. Sure, it makes for an intense workflow, but we think our readers are worth it.
As The Juice’s Senior Educator and Writer, Jake Burt has written hundreds of articles on topics ranging from deadly earthquakes in Morocco to puffin yeeting off the cliffs of Iceland. Before joining The Juice, he spent 22 years in the classroom, teaching everything from kindergarten to college (5th grade was his favorite, though…). He’s also the award-winning author of middle grade novels like Greetings From Witness Protection!, Cleo Porter and the Body Electric, and The Tornado. He lives in Connecticut, has a cat, and is a mediocre banjo player.
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