The big week is coming up and maybe you aren’t sure how to celebrate. Fear not, this list has you covered.

1. Enter the Scholastic Journalism Week poster contest
2. Apply to be a Scholastic Journalism Week featured school
3. Declare Scholastic Journalism week in your hometown – check out JEA.org for a resolution template
4. Use our daily SJW themes and hashtags to engage with JEA member schools on social media.
5. Submit some of your published work and reflections to our SJW Featured School series. We will highlight work inspired by our daily themes by student media from around the country each day during the week.
6. Work with local media to have a broader impact in promoting the ideals of scholastic journalism.
7. Hold an all-school program in which staff members teach their peers about ethical journalism and how it’s practiced in their publications or how students can tell the difference between fake news and real news, and ethical reporting methods.
8. Host a school journalism movie series or night, after which students and/or professional journalists can discuss how real-life journalists go about their jobs.
9. Run a social media campaign to draw attention to pressing social issues among high school students.
10. Publish some sort of photo essay mixed with writing and stories to show just how important journalism is.
11. What sort of work has been done in scholastic journalism because students have the freedom to publish?
12. Tweet “Why the First Amendment is important to me.” “Why ethical journalism is important to me.”
13. Conduct outreach to get people interested in consuming and/or producing journalism.
14. Support New Voices by writing letters of support for schools/states who are working on student press freedom legislation.
15. Hold a law and ethics crash course on the First Amendment.
16. Work to produce profile pieces on students from different backgrounds, marginalized voices. #StudentVoice.
17. Ask the same question to different students in your community & compare answers.
18. Interview campus and/or district administration on their support of scholastic journalism and/or student publications
19. Release simple, powerful statements that underscore the importance of “real” news and the process of verification.
20. Promote #everydayjournalism — any story can make a difference.
21. Take some video of your upcoming deadline. Post it online, via Facebook or Twitter to show your community what a scholastic publication goes through to share all the news that’s fit to print, or record the memories that make the year.
22. Portrait project: Draw attention to the week and your staff. Assign students a portrait project. Depending on access to photography equipment, students could check out cameras for a day with a partner or group and head out on campus to get their portrait taken (you could even specify that their portrait be taken with a cellphone camera for additional challenge). They then come back to the lab, upload their photos and chose one portrait of themselves that they feel encompasses their personality and who they are. Share them as a staff and then share them with your community. Mount them and put each staffer’s name on his or her portrait. Then use a wall outside your publication office or an empty trophy case to display the photos.
23. Have an “Amazing Race”-style First Amendment scavenger hunt. Students are given clues related to each of the Five Freedoms scattered around the school (eg. “speech” clue hidden on the speaker). Kids have to find each item, then go on to the next clue. Prizes are given to the first three to complete the list.
24. Hold a “Meet the Press” event at your school. Send out invitations (either tangible ones or email) and invite your school’s staff and administrators to a short after-school get-together. Buy or make Scholastic Journalism Week-themed cake or cookies, have soft drinks available, have your entire publication staff in attendance and schmooze it up. Send thank-you cards after the event letting those who attended how much you appreciate their support.
25. Promote yourself. Use this week as a special way to recruit. Send out a celebration packet to your feeder schools, send it with some of your staffers. Create a brochure to advertise your program and suggest easy ways those in your community could get involved.
26. Send thank-you notes to advertisers and/or other people in your community who consistently help you out.
27. Have your students tweet about the First Amendment and moments during the week they think about those freedoms. Use the hashtag #SJW2024 so we can all follow your tweets!
28. Celebrate the week by conducting short lessons on each of the Five Freedoms, one each day.
29. Have your students take each day to conduct polls of the student body about those freedoms, what they know, but more importantly educating them on what they don’t know. Culminate the week with a penny drive for the Student Press Law Center.
30. Change your profile pic on Facebook to the SJW poster.
31. Write a status update during the week about why you consider scholastic journalism essential to your school, or why you continue to be a part of scholastic journalism. Share your passion, share your inspiration. What keeps you going?
32. Celebrate yourself, at the end of the week, treat yourself to something special (whether it’s a cup of your favorite coffee, a pedi/mani, maybe a massage). You, as an adviser, do so much to support what your students do, you deserve to take some time to yourself.
33. Have your staff attend the school board meeting during the week. PACK THE HOUSE! Maybe even be proactive and attend the meeting but also address the board about the value of journalism in the curriculum and of free and responsible student news media serving the community.
34. Print posters from this page for the week and put them up all over your school the Friday evening before so students see them at the beginning of the week.
35. Set up morning announcements for each day. Have them either read over the intercom or broadcast via your television broadcast class.
36. Have your staffers wear their staff shirts, 45words or other First Amendment shirts, or anything and everything related to journalism at least once during the week at the same time. Need fresh swag to rep during SJW, find what you need at the JEA store.
37. Have your students take a day to write a letter to your local paper about the importance of journalism to them, the school, etc.
38. Do Something! Don’t let the week slip by!
39. Make cupcakes with the 45 word of the First Amendment on each of them and give to a random class in your school
40. Partner with a government of civics class to teach a special First Amendment lesson
41. Thank a member (or all the members) of the Scholastic Journalism Week committee
42. Do a public service announcement on local radio or television
43. Create a podcast about all the benefits of scholastic journalism
44. Create a timeline of the historic scholastic journalism events in your school and publish or post on your website
45. Write the First Amendment out on multiple balloons and pass them out to students as they leave school
46. Pass out First Amendment buttons to students as they enter school
47. Apply by Dec. 15 each year to be a First Amendment Press Freedom Award winning school
48. Interview students in your school to see how many can name the five freedoms afforded them in the First Amendment
49. Have students memorize and recite the First Amendment in front of the class
50. Video students reciting the First Amendment and post on your social media accounts
51. Thank a local journalist who was once a student journalist
52. Deliver a goody basket to your local printer, yearbook rep or principal
53. Deliver a gift certificate to your superintendent
54. Write thank you notes to members of your school board
55. Spell out the five freedoms in cups in your stadium fence
56. Create posters and banners to put up in high traffic areas around your school
57. Pass out raffle tickets for a free prize as students get off busses and enter school
58. Have a First Amendment photo booth set up during lunch shifts
59. Put up signs during a basketball game, wrestling match or other winter sporting event
60. Have announcers at a winter sporting event publicize what journalists are doing to celebrate Scholastic Journalism Week
61. Seek permission to run a 50/50 raffle during a winter sporting event and donate the proceeds to SPLC
62. March in a holiday parade with your staff holding signs to support democracy, journalism and the First Amendment
63. Set up a table at a middle school recruitment fair to support scholastic journalism and why all students should be involved
64. During scholastic journalism week, volunteer in a local soup kitchen or another place together as a staff
65. Hold a basket bingo to make money for the SPLC – fill baskets with themed items (coffee, chocolate, college items etc.)
66. Write the 45 words of the First Amendment on the sidewalk leading into your school using sidewalk chalk
67. Challenge members of your student body to memorize the First Amendment and come to your classroom to recite it for a prize
68. Set up a meeting with your administrators to discuss student press freedoms and policies in your school/school system
69. Have students teach a mini lesson in your journalism, government, civics classes each day of Scholastic Journalism Week
70. Write the 45 words of the First Amendment on homemade cookies and give them as prizes to classes or individuals in your school
71. Write the 45 words of the First Amendment on brownies and give them as prizes to classes or individuals in your school
72. Give 45 pieces of candy to a student who can recite the First Amendment
73. Create a First Amendment basket and give it away as a prize during Scholastic Journalism Week
74. Purchase First Amendment/45 words t-shirts for your entire staff and wear them during SJW
75. Order some First Amendment pencils/pens to pass out to students at your school
76. Design/order some First Amendment socks, mittens, scarves for your staff
77. Combine a Valentine’s celebration with your love of the First Amendment – have students create Valentine’s about what they love about the five freedoms
78. Hold a First Amendment essay contest in your school
79. Put a Scholastic Journalism Week award winner under one seat in every classroom and have the winners come to your room to pick up a prize after the morning announcements
80. Get permission to set up a table outside your local Walmart or in your area mall to celebrate Scholastic Journalism Week
81. Set up a restaurant night with a local restaurant where a percentage of the proceeds you make could be sent to SPLC to support scholastic journalism. Set up five! One for each night of the week!
82. Create a video interviewing area professional journalists about the benefits of journalism in a democracy
83. Hold a coloring contest for local elementary school students surrounding the importance of journalism
84. Help elementary school students create a broadcast episode to show at their school
85. Hold an open house for parents to come into the journalism classroom/pub room lab and see what you do every day
86. Host a bring a parent/grandparent to worknight event and teach them what you do
87. Host a photography workshop for community members to teach them how to use a camera
88. Design a scholastic journalism week postcard, have them printed and send one to every person at your school asking for coverage ideas
89. Write an editorial about the importance of your school’s journalism program and send it to your local media to be published. Push out in your own media, too.
90. Hold a photography contest that incorporates the Scholastic Journalism Week theme
91. Build a Scholastic Journalism Week lunch buffet for your faculty and serve them in the teacher’s lounge or your classroom. Send out invitations and make it matter!
92. Place goodies with a message about SJW in teacher work areas or mailboxes – celebrate something each day
93. Share a real-life story/example of why journalism matters with your class/school each day of the week
94. Put a SJW message attached to a piece of bubble gum with a “Chew on This” message
95. Decorate your classroom or the hallway outside your classroom with all sorts of messaging about scholastic journalism week
96. Celebrate all the journalists on your staff by highlighting them each day of the week in a multitude of ways
97. Send thank you notes to parents of your staff members thanking them for allowing their children to participate
98. Plan a staff celebration at a local restaurant, go bowling together, see a movie
99. Plan a movie night at your school and get permission to show a popular journalism movie
100. Invite alumni from your program to come speak to your students each day of Scholastic Journalism Week