Yearbook curriculum
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Teaching yearbook: 5 photography mini lessons
Improving yearbooking skill sets is an ongoing process, and we sometimes forgo instructional time as deadline season creeps in. Using these five mini-yearbook lessons, you'll be able to improve your photography skills with a DSLR, mirrorless, or cell phone camera while still having plenty of time for yearbook production.
Lesson 1: Rule of Thirds
Imagine your photo divided into a tic-tac-toe grid, with two horizontal and two vertical lines, creating nine parts. Instead of placing your subject dead center, try aligning them along these gridlines. The asymmetry adds interest to your composition.
Action should flow across your photo, not off it. The same goes for eyes: you want your subject looking in.
Try It!
Head out to the school courtyard and practice the rule of thirds with your classmates. Practice taking both vertical (portrait) and horizontal (landscape) portraits, ensuring your subjects are placed along the gridlines for a visually pleasing result.
Lesson 2: Angles in Composition
By experimenting with these angles, photographers convey different emotions, perspectives, and stories in their images.
Practice each of these photo angles during your lessons.
- Eye level: This is most common because the photographer captures subjects at the same height as the camera.
- Worm’s eye view: This varies between dramatic and unflattering, so use with caution. By lowering the camera, the subject appears larger.
- Bird's eye view: A great view to use when students are collaborating on a project, this captures scenes from above.
- Close-up (Macro): Cameras and their phone counterparts usually have a setting to help focus on small details or subjects up close. This is great for art class or some science labs (not dissections) when you need to reveal intricate textures and patterns.
- Wide-angle: Oh, the 0.5 that is trending! A traditional wide-angle shot captures a broader view and exaggerates perspective.
- Over the shoulder: Sometimes, the story is in the work, not the student. (This also helps with camera-shy students.)
- Overhead angle: For flat lays (e.g., what’s in my backpack modules), shoot downward from an overhead position.
Try It!
Stage a student at work in the classroom. Taking turns, yearbook photographers should circle and move around the subject, snapping photos using the above angles. For more application, one student can “direct” the photoshoot, explaining which angle to practice and how to achieve it.
Lesson 3: Cell Phone Photography
Cell phone cameras make yearbook photography more convenient for students–it’s a familiar and comfortable way to document the day. While DSLR and mirrorless cameras give more control over light, cell phones are lightweight and on your person nearly 24/7.
As with a traditional camera, you want to hold the phone steady with both hands, elbows in. This adds stability and reduces blur, especially in low-light situations.
Additionally, remember to zoom with your feet. My yearbook adviser gave me this photography lesson back in the 90s, and it still holds. This means photographers move to the subject and avoid a single, stationary vantage point. Ultimately, the composition and photo quality will be better.
By pinching and zooming, you reduce the pixels in the photo, thus destroying its quality. It’s better to zoom and crop once the photo is on your spread.
Try It!
Turn the grid on your phone cameras (Android, iPhone) and repeat the previous exercises on the rule of thirds and angles. Remember, the principles of photography are universal.
Yearbook PSA
With a camera in most teachers’ and parents’ pockets, you have an additional photography crew on campus. Creating shared photo folders and communicating how to get pics in them allows more stories and POVs to be told.
Lesson 4: Depth of Field (Portrait Mode)
Depth of field is a crucial aspect of photography, influenced by the aperture setting on a camera. The aperture is the physical opening in the lens that controls the amount of light entering the camera. The wider the aperture opens, the more light passes through.
Portrait mode on a cell phone mimics depth of field by using depth mapping, selective focus, and, sometimes, multiple lenses to create a shallow depth of field, similar to what is achieved with a wide aperture on a traditional camera. (Click here for the full technical read.)
Try It!
Using both a camera and a cell phone, take headshots of your yearbook staff. Try f/22, f/8, and f/1.4. Repeat, focusing on objects, such as a baseball or pointe shoes, in the hands of a student.
Lesson 5: Assessment
Every unit needs a culminating activity. And since we love gamifying yearbook class, here is a photography Bingo card. You can use this in a few ways:
- Coverall: assign students the card to complete
- Traditional: make it a race to get five in a row
- Collaborative: as a group, work through the card; you may assign teams a row or column
- Minute-to-win-it: Give students a time limit (more than a minute) to achieve as many tasks as possible
What Makes a Great Yearbook Photo?
The short answer: storytelling photos.
A yearbook narrative of the entire school year. Candid moments, such as in-class discussions, reactions at a game or awards ceremony, or spontaneous interactions between friends, are emotive. While posed pictures have their place–the portrait section is full of them–action shots bring a sense of vitality and excitement to your yearbook.
By applying the composition tips above, your yearbook photography is already diversified. The variety of angles and depth of field alone will increase the visual appeal of each layout.
Taking multiple shots of your subject is a great way to ensure you get the best pose, reaction, and composite. Deleting unwanted images only takes seconds and not getting the most effective image in the first place is a missed opportunity that can’t be duplicated.
Additional photography resources for yearbook classes and clubs:
Yearbook spread checklists for student editing and grading
Raise your hand if you've made a mistake in the yearbook. Yup. The editing process for our small (read: five members) yearbook team transformed when we goofed up the spring sports section. Who noticed page numbers missing from the softball page? Softball players. Do you know who didn’t notice? Everyone else on campus. Regardless, that was the proverbial wake-up call this adviser needed to create a spread checklist to accompany the editing process. The flexible framework and quality assurance that came with its implementation simplified spread creation and elevated the theme elements.
List of Things to Include
If your goal is cohesive design and layout, include a copy of your style guide in your checklist.
Yearbook Style Guide Ideas
- Font size and weight: heading, subheading, caption, body copy, portraits, rosters, pull quotes, group photos, folio/page numbers
- Text alignment rules
- Color palette
- Theme graphics: size, use case
- Photographs: borders, size, shape, alignment, spacing, rules on hand gestures and photobombs
- Banned words: favorite, family, this year, come together (these aren’t industry standard, rather my list of campus-specific cliches I’d rather not see again)
Pro tip: Set up photo and text styles in your yearbook editing program.
When Do You Need a Yearbook Spread Checklist?
The quick answer: any time a spread is in progress.
Yearbook checklists provide a foundation, ensuring that students cover all essential elements of a spread—from images and captions to layout and design. There are no surprises. The checklist can alleviate surprises and questions such as, "What size are headlines again?"
At a minimum, spread checklists should accompany PDF proofs because we all do our best proofing after the book goes to print.
Using Yearbook Checklists in Peer Editing
The checklist becomes an educational resource in itself. It is a tool for quality control, enabling students to cross-check their work against established criteria. This fosters a culture of accountability and attention to detail.
As students engage with it, they absorb design principles and begin to internalize design standards as they learn what works aesthetically. This learning opportunity extends beyond the checklist and contributes to the overall growth of emerging designers. (According to the folks at Cornell, peer editing increases student output.)
A Checklist is not a Rubric
In the educational realm, checklists and rubrics are like the Rocket Raccoon and Groot of assessment. Think of a checklist as your friendly to-do list; it's straightforward and lists criteria that need to be met. Using the cycle above, it’s a coaching tool that moves yearbook spread designers from blank page (scary) to complete and tells the story of the year (goal). On the flip side, rubrics break down criteria into levels, providing a nuanced understanding of performance.
In yearbook class, the spread checklist emerges as a non-negotiable tool for success. From providing structural guidance to serving as a quality control mechanism, its benefits extend to both students and advisers. For new advisers, it acts as a compass, while returning advisers find it a means to ensure consistency and embrace innovation.
Adviser advice: keep, change, stop
If starting the year with a yearbook debrief wasn’t possible or 3rd period publications popped up on your schedule the day before school started, start here. Keep, change, stop is a conversation to have as a team. Thumb through the yearbook, project some spreads on the wall, and complete a matrix. What aspects of your program are proverbial home runs and should be keepers? What needs to be changed? (Remain proactive and brainstorm solutions.) What needs to be stopped? At TRL 23, we sat down with four advisers to learn their takes.
Watch the full interview on Treering’s Facebook page.
Katie Thomas, Elk Grove, CA
We first met Katie Thomas when she became the yearbook coordinator for her daughters’ K-8 school midway through the year. As the lone parent volunteer, she sold 60 yearbooks in a week and now oversees the middle school club.
For Thomas, cover contests are a keeper. She said each year the school has a theme and she loves how the yearbook club chooses to “intertwine” it with the theme they select.
Moving forward, she’s going to change up the interview process for students in favor of more journalistic writing. “We want to make sure that there are more voices heard,” she said. “This is a student-produced yearbook.”
This year she stopped having multiple editors share a spread. “I learned the hard way,” she said about having students edit each other’s work without a formative peer editing process.
Janet Yieh, San Francisco, CA
Like Thomas, Janet Yieh began as a parent volunteer. Now, she’s transitioned the club from an after school activity to a school day program with 19 middle schoolers.
For the foreseeable future, Yieh will keep giving away yearbooks. Last year it was 100. “We are in San Francisco, and it's an urban environment. We have many families who qualify for free and reduced lunch,” she said. To ensure all eighth graders leave with a yearbook, she adds a small fundraiser to the cost of each book and pushes Treering’s early discount. Since many families take advantage of the sale, Yieh “buys into every single fundraising dollar.” To distribute the books, she creates a contest to win a yearbook so no one is singled out.
She is going to change up the class structure by inviting more experts to share with the club and creating some lesson plans for her students. Last year Yieh piloted this idea with her boss who went to design school. This year, an English teacher will guest teach on writing. “I'm a mom. I'm not a teacher,” said Yieh. “I'm trying to personally create curriculum for them to follow each week.”
While Yieh’s students led the design concept, she’s stopping their theme-less tradition. “If we create a foundation, it will be much easier when it's time to actually pop the photos into their pages.”
Chris Frost, Hemet, CA
“I was a student editor on this exact book, which I'm super proud of,” Christ Frost said. Because he knows the value of ownership, he keeps the tradition of a student-led yearbook program. “Our students decide everything. They pick our theme. They pick and design our layouts by hand because they like to struggle and fight with what a design should look like.” He and co-adviser Billy Valenzuela advise by keeping students on track towards their deadline.
The big change is how Frost’s students will increase representation in their yearbook. Historically, the team at West Valley High covers 80% of students beyond their school photo. That’s not enough. In repose, they created a B.O.L.O. (be on the lookout) wall with “ASB’s Most Wanted” using their coverage tracker. “It's also going to help us see who are those people that are hiding in the shadows that are in that background,” Frost said.
“This is their memory. This is their keepsake. This is a historical document. This is something that 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years from now, they're gonna pull out and show family and there's nothing worse than opening that book up and your kid going, but where are you?”
Chris Frost
He stopped the way students received page assignments: instead of individual assignments, they are now in teams. Each team of five, led by one editor, works on five spreads at a time. Frost said, “They can delegate amongst each other… so it gives kind of a broader range on the pages.”
Beth Stacy, Huber Heights, OH
As a class adviser, Beth Stacy knows how much work her students do to identify each featured person in a photo, write body copy and captions, and place it beautifully in an effectively designed layout.
Without hesitation, she would keep grading spreads. “Every grade or every spread is graded on pass/fail,” Stacy said. The end goal of having all spreads submitted to Stacy print-ready means students are in control of their grades.
Stacy said, “Probably 95 to 98% of our book is taken by one parent who has kids in a bunch of activities, one teacher who is an amateur photographer, and then our professional photographer.” The yearbook culture change is student photography. She’s motivated by the fresh energy the younger team in her class brings.
Stopping the blend of chronological and traditional coverage is top of her list. After trying it for their 75th anniversary book, she said, “It got messy and didn't work very well.” Focusing on the traditional sections such as people, student life, and sports will help returning students train new ones and also balance the load for the few dedicated computers they share.
For more from these advisers, including their tips for getting started, favorite Treering hack, and application processes, watch the full video on Facebook.
10 reasons we're excited about trl
Recreating the wheel is exhausting. Having Treering Live (TRL) experts provide all their tips and tricks saves time and energy and brings the fun back to yearbooking. (Yes, yearbook is a verb.) Treering tailored TRL for yearbook volunteers, educators, and aficionados of all levels, offering 18 sessions so you can engage with various aspects of the creative process. In anticipation, we compiled our top reasons TRL is the yearbook event of the season.
1. Leave With a Road Map
Figuring out how to get started when you're new to the school yearbook is daunting, especially when the person who used to do it is no longer at the school. Learn how to start and finish your yearbook.
Recommended sessions: I’m the Yearbook Coordinator… Now What? and Teaching Yearbook
2. Live Event
Real-time sessions mean your questions get asked and answered promptly. Between the live Q&A during each session and the chat throughout, there are plenty of opportunities for shared learning.
Recommended sessions: Ask Us Anything with Treering’s Co-Founder Brady McCue and Keep, Change, Stop
3. Connecting with Other Advisers
Because two—or four hundred—heads are better than one, working together turns terrifying yearbook mountains into easy-to-approach small hills. TRL is not just about knowledge acquisition; it's about building connections within the yearbook community during National School Yearbook Week. You'll collaborate with fellow yearbook enthusiasts, sharing your triumphs, learning from your challenges, and forging bonds beyond these three days online.
Recommended sessions: Fundraising and Crowdsourcing and Social Media for Yearbook
4. Making a Plan
From a ladder and coverage calendar to the next marketing campaign, you’re leaving TRL with concrete steps to make the best yearbook yet.
Recommended sessions: Getting Organized and Creating a Marketing Plan
5. Design Inspiration
Yearbook Hero Lauren Casteen introduced us to mild, medium, and spicy design. Wherever you fall on this scale, you will gain an understanding of layout, typography, and color and how to go to the next level. You’ll also be able to help your yearbook team produce robust designs. Because, seriously, no one should yearbook alone.
Recommended sessions: Design 101 and Design 201
6. Three Days of Training
Joining TRL for one or all 18 sessions is a testament to your passion for preserving the memories and historical record of the school year, one page at a time.
7. Cash
Kind of. Because we love a theme, there will be some sort of game in many sessions. Prizes include pizza parties, art supplies, and gift cards for coffee or Amazon.
8. 6+ Hours of PD
Treering loves teachers. You’ll see learning outcomes in the session descriptions, and some of us, unabashedly, speak in teacher-ese. We know the importance of pro-grow opportunities. We know how annoying it is when someone reads their slides.
9. The Treering Difference
Many schools consider changing their yearbook program and need to see Treering’s software firsthand. Busy schedules make it difficult, so we have four opportunities to dive in.
Recommended session: Live Demo
10. The Journey isn’t Over
In keeping with our game theme, your next winning move can take the form of weekly posts on the blog, monthly webinars, and 24/7 support with the Help Center. These myriad options allow flexibility in scheduling and enable you to revisit content or learn something new at your own pace.
Share your top moments during TRL: 23 by tagging us on social using @treering (Facebook and X) or @treeringcorp (Instagram and TikTok) using #trl23.
Why you need an agenda slide for yearbook class
An agenda slide is more than an organizational tool: it creates a method to maintain accountability in your yearbook class.
What Goes on an Agenda Slide?
You could write the items below on your whiteboard easy peasy. Many advisers told us they prefer to create their agenda digitally because it provides a record for administration and parents (hello, accreditation year). The following year, it simply needs basic edits to remain current. Give yourself bonus points if you adapt the slides to your yearbook theme and/or color scheme.
Because a structured daily agenda slide helps your yearbook staff understand what to expect during the class or club session, we like to include these five things:
- Date and class information
- Learning objectives or goals for the day's lesson
- Class agenda
- Deliverables
- Announcements and reminders
If your yearbook program is a club, and you do not need CTE or ELA standards, use a brief description of the yearbook club's purpose or mission to keep activities aligned.
Two Examples of Organization and Accountability
Obvious statement: the yearbook is a big project. By creating and posting an agenda, you can chunk the work to make it realistic.
Example 1: Project-Based Agenda
The example above clearly identifies the learning objective and how they complement the broader yearbook project. The stand-up meeting includes deadline setting, content creation, and photo assignments. This method helps all editors and support staff see how their section contributes to the entire yearbook.
Example 2: Time-Management Agenda
Many clubs meet twice a week, so chunking the work time helps the team know the purpose of their time together. That sounds simplistic, and we’ve seen strategies such as Deep Work or the Pomodoro Technique highlight short periods of focus to yield more valuable results. Less is more. Reserved space on the agenda slide also informs about upcoming deadlines, events, and opportunities.
If your campus or district requires documentation, a deck of yearbook agenda slides complements your curriculum map. It ensures both your production and learning outcomes align. (True story: administrators love them.) They also simplify preparing for sub plans and absent students’ catch-up bins: students come to expect your established routine.
Yearbook job descriptions
A common mistake is to hand out titles. (Think of that Oprah meme, "You are a yearbook editor, you are a yearbook editor...") Before you go crazy with inventing a structure, create job descriptions for each position. The benefit: staff members can focus on their designated areas of expertise, resulting in a more organized and high-quality yearbook production. Emphasis on the organized. We created these yearbook job descriptions to help prevent misunderstandings, reduce conflicts, and enhance communication within the yearbook team.
What Jobs Exist on a Yearbook Staff?
From editors to photographers and every copy-editing, photo-tagging contributor in between, yearbook staffs can be specialized or comprised of generalists. The most important things are to
- Recruit a team reflective of the community you cover
- Communicate the roles and responsibilities early and often
Editor in Chief
As captain of the proverbial ship, the editor in chief (EIC) oversees the entire yearbook production process. (This is not to be confused with the yearbook adviser; more on that below.) The EIC manages the team and ensures the yearbook meets quality standards.
Daily duties include checking in with the editorial board (large staff) or coordinating with staff members to communicate yearbook progress and assigning tasks such as mini deadlines or photo assignments.
A successful EIC demonstrates leadership and talent.
Yearbook Editorial Board Job Descriptions
Your editor in chief will oversee the team that shapes the theme and coverage of the yearbook and helps train new students. This editorial board can be as large or small as your staff necessitates, and may vary from year to year.
Beyond the big picture design and team harmony goals, the day-to-day duties of editorial board members consist of:
Copy Editor
Accuracy in grammar, spelling, and facts are the hallmarks of a successful copy editor. While the entire project does not rest on this one person’s shoulders, all section editors should do their due diligence to ensure their teams’ submissions are beyond the first draft phase prior to submitting.
Photo Editor
Ensuring that the images meet quality standards and deadlines are met, the photo editor organizes uploaded images, ensures they are tagged accurately, and schedules photographers.
Section Editors
Section Editors oversee specific sections of the yearbook, such as sports, academics, clubs, or student life. They coordinate with photographers and writers to ensure comprehensive coverage and consistency within their assigned sections. While the tasks of section editors may vary depending on the size of the yearbook team and the specific guidelines set by the yearbook advisor or school, below are some examples of team members and their section-specific duties.
Sports Editor
- Obtain rosters and schedules for each team
- Coordinate team photos with the coaching staff
- Schedule photographers for practices, tournaments, and games
- Work with Booster organizations or parents to crowdsource photos
Reference/People Editor
- Coordinate with the photo editor to ensure all photos are tagged
- Run index and/or flow portraits
- Create opportunities for storytelling throughout the reference or people section
Student Life Editor
- Coordinate with reporters and designers to ensure the events in the yearbook showcase both depth and breadth
- Work with photo and reference editors to identify students who are both in and not in the yearbook three times
- Establish a crowdsourcing plan with the social media team
What do Yearbook Editors Do?
Content Planning
Section editors need to plan the content for their assigned sections. This involves brainstorming ideas, scheduling events or activities to cover, and extending the yearbook theme through sidebars, body copy, and headlines.
Communication
Editors must ensure each team member knows their responsibilities and deadlines for the week. Some staffs find a weekly staff meeting where the editors detail the week’s events and assignments plus overall book progress keeps things moving.
Reviewing and Editing Content
It’s important to match seasoned staffers with new ones to provide useful feedback and coaching through regular checks for accuracy, clarity, and adherence to the yearbook's style and guidelines.
Meeting Deadlines
The editorial board must monitor the progress of their team members and ensure that all content and materials for their section are completed on time. They also review the overall progress of the section and address any potential delays or issues that may arise.
Business Manager
Working with the adviser to coordinate sales, track orders, manage budgets, and organize advertising and fundraising initiatives, the business manager helps to ensure the yearbook's financial success. (This sounds scarier than it is.)
Social Media Manager
Yearbook teams use a social media manager to handle the yearbook's online presence and engagement. Daily tasks include:
- Managing social media accounts
- Posting updates
- Sharing previews of the yearbook
- Interacting with the school community
Job Descriptions for Yearbook Staff Members
The majority of your students will fall into this category. These are the frontliners who cover events, write headlines, interview students, submit stories, re-write those stories, and make your team’s vision come to life. They collaborate with the editorial board to develop story ideas, learn to tell stories through photos, and fit layout schemes and page designs to content. Students will get experience with varied responsibilities. For example, having a basic understanding of photography can enhance the team's capabilities and contribute to equitable yearbook coverage.
Large staffs have the luxury of further specializing their teams.
Designers
Their specialty is arranging photos, text, and graphics to create appealing and organized page spreads that use theme elements. They are flexible and see how the part (a photo) contributes to the whole (your school’s story).
Photographers
Photographers capture high-quality images of various events, activities, and individuals throughout the school year. They aim for story-telling photographs, zoom with their feet, and show up. Oh yeah, and they tag their pics.
Reporters
Students, teachers, and staff members share their stories with your reporters who then create engaging narratives. They pre-plan open-ended interview questions, listen, and dive deep.
By establishing roles and responsibilities, your yearbook staff will work in roles suitable to their experience and interests, giving them an opportunity to experience personal growth and develop a skillset that interests them.
Teaching yearbook: digital escape room
Unlock the mysteries of yearbooking with this classroom-ready lesson plan. We designed this yearbook escape room to kick off the school year or to serve as an informal assessment. With yearbook vocabulary at the core of this activity, students progress through a task to “unlock” another. When all four keys are complete and correct, they unscramble the final code. Cue crowd cheering noise.
Escape Room Activities
Students progress through the following four activities to stretch their knowledge and application of yearbook terms.
Task 1: Yearbook Lexicon
Find words related to yearbook terms within the jumbled letters horizontally, vertically, and diagonally. After finding all 21 words, the unused letters in the grid will spell out a hidden message which will unlock the next stage of the escape room.
Task 2: Emoji Combinations
Analyze the emojis' meaning in the context of yearbook-related activities and concepts. After entering all the words, students will find a three-digit code used to unlock the next task.
Task 3: Yearbook Riddles
Solve six riddles based on the who, what, and when of yearbook creation. Once solved, a hidden word will reveal the next clue.
Task 4: Identification Station
Examine two yearbook spreads and identify the elements of design and yearbook hierarchy. Students’ answers will produce the last three letters needed to unlock the final puzzle.
Teacher Instructions
This electronic escape room works best in student pairs. Students enter their responses on a self-checking Google Form to advance through the activity while collecting letters to unscramble for the final code. (This also works well if you have a sub covering your class and want to leave a low-prep, meaningful activity.)
Because you know your class best, you can hand out tasks one-by-one or distribute them in a packet. Both require the trifecta of teamwork, collaboration, and content knowledge to be successful.
To use the yearbook escape room,
- Download the task cards; print one copy per group of 2-3 students
- Share this Google Form with your students via Google Classroom or email.
When the Escape Room Is Finished
Determine the goal: completion and material mastery or friendly competition? Based on the desired outcome, you may want to have directions ready for one of the following activities.
- Yearbook spread critique: using the vocab, identify elements of design on an in-progress spread. Determine three areas of improvement.
- Interview a classmate on the experience; build a module for your academics section on the yearbook class
By extending this yearbook-related activity, students can further develop and demonstrate their skills in communication, utilizing technology tools, and applying visual arts principles. Extension ideas include creating layouts, capturing and editing photos, and using digital tools for design and presentation.
Another consideration is how, and if, you will grade the escape room activity. Some teachers award points for completion and bonus points for the first, second, and third-place teams.
Standards
The yearbook-related activity can meet several national standards. We’ve listed some below; please note specific standards may vary depending on the framework or guidelines followed by your educational institution or state. Your district curriculum or CTE coordinator might help you align your usage of the yearbook escape room with the appropriate standards and objectives in your specific context.
Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for English Language Arts
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.7.4: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including figurative, connotative, and technical meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone.
- CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.9-10.1: Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 9-10 topics, texts, and issues, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
National Association of State Directors of Career Technical Education Consortium (NASDCTEc) - Communication:
- Standard: Apply verbal, nonverbal, written, and visual communication techniques to create, express, and interpret information and ideas.
International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) - Technology Operations and Concepts:
- Standard: Use digital tools to gather, evaluate, and use information.
- Standard: Use technology tools to enhance learning, increase productivity, and promote creativity.
National Core Arts Standards - Visual Arts:
- Standard: Generate and conceptualize artistic ideas and work.
- Standard: Organize and develop artistic ideas and work.
- Standard: Reflect on and evaluate artistic work.
Remember, our primary goal in creating this escape room is to foster collaboration, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills within your yearbook students. Collaborate, listen, enjoy the adventure, and be sure to tag @treering on Facebook and @treeringcorp on Instagram.
Teaching yearbook: 60 bell ringers
How different would your yearbook class or club be if you had ten minutes at the start to focus your team on the day's objectives and transition them from hallway to classroom mode? Working with middle and high school yearbook advisers, we created 60 Bell Ringers to do just this. Use the prompts below to teach and strengthen skills by dropping them in Google Classroom, displaying them in a slide deck, or writing them on the board.
Why Do You Need Bell Ringers for Yearbook?
While we often pump the intro to design and copywriting lessons the first few weeks of the school year, the overwhelming nature of organizing photo shoots, liaising with club sponsors or athletic coaches and scheduling picture day take precedence. (Validation: those things are vital for the success of your yearbook–keep doing them!)
If you’re submitting documentation for WASC or your admin, bell ringers activate learning by giving students a quick thought-provoking question, problem-solving exercise, or yearbook critique activity. Some bell ringers encourage critical thinking, and others serve as an anticipatory activity because they stimulate students' curiosity.
TLDR? Use bell ringers to set the tone.
Teambuilding
Yes, you’ll have your group games, yearbook weddings, and human knots. And no, that’s not all you’ll need to forge connections and build trust. These prompts help students share and learn about each other's interests, preferences, and experiences and teach empathy for those they'll interview in the weeks ahead.
- "Emoji Introduction": Share three emojis that represent different aspects of your life. (Afterward, students share their emojis with the class and explain their choices, providing insights into their personalities and experiences.)
- “Time Capsule”: Describe five things you would put in a time capsule for yearbook students 10 years from now.
- “Do-Over”: What is one thing you wish you had done differently this year and why?
- “Influencer”: Share a book, movie, or song that profoundly impacted you and explain why it resonated with you. (If appropriate, you may want to create a yearbook team playlist for motivation, or when it’s time to celebrate good times… come on!)
- “Self-Promotion”: What role does the yearbook play in fostering a sense of community and collective identity within the school? How are you contributing?
- “Dear Younger Me”: Reflect on your overall personal growth and development throughout your time on the yearbook staff and how it has shaped you as an individual. What did you wish you knew at the start of the year?
- “Mind Shift”: Describe a class or subject that you initially didn't enjoy but ended up loving and why your perspective changed.
- “Second Life”: What is something you are proud of accomplishing outside of academics this year?
Bell Ringers to Teach Writing
Quick math lesson: one five-minute writing bell ringer debrief a week will give your students an additional 200 minutes of writing practice. With these short writing tasks, advisers can also provide more immediate feedback to students when they share their work. Don’t think of it as an informal assessment that requires a line item in the grade book, but rather as facilitating continuous growth.
Ledes and Captions
- What is the importance of a compelling lede in a piece of writing? Share an example of a lead that successfully captures your attention and explain why it stands out to you.
- Think about a memorable article or story you've read recently. Analyze the lede and discuss how it effectively hooks the reader and sets the tone for the rest of the piece.
- Choose a recent photo from your phone and write three possible ledes: one pun, one using your theme, and one three-word attention-grabber.
- Reflect on a nearly finished spread and revise at least one lede. Share how it improved the overall impact of your writing.
Feature Stories
- Think about a significant moment or event from your school year that you believe would make a great yearbook story. Outline the key elements of the story, including the people involved, the emotions experienced, and the impact it had on the school community.
- List potential angles, interview questions, and storytelling techniques you would employ for a personality profile for a student you do not know.
- Interview another yearbook student about a personal experience or accomplishment from this school year. Write a brief summary of the story, including the central theme, key moments, and the message or lesson it conveys.
- Brainstorm ideas for a yearbook story that celebrates the diversity and inclusivity of your school community. Share potential story angles or interview questions that would help capture the richness of your school's diversity.
- Have students gather in small groups and share one memorable experience or event from the school year. Each group should choose one story to develop further as a potential yearbook feature. Encourage them to discuss the key moments, people (directly and indirectly involved), emotions, and impact of the story.
- Provide students with a collection of unused photographs from a specific school activity. In pairs or individually, students should select one photo that catches their attention and write a brief story idea based on the image. Encourage them to consider the context, characters, and potential narrative elements.
- Organize a "Story Pitch" session where students can present their yearbook story ideas to the class. Each student should prepare a short pitch, explaining the central theme, key moments, and the significance of their chosen story. Encourage constructive feedback and discussion among the students.
What’s Happening Here?
These yearbook caption bell ringers work best when paired with a photo of a prominent event on campus or one from history or pop culture. The goal is to unpack the action and the story within the image. For consistent practice, make a weekly event, such as “Photo Friday,” to cycle through these prompts.
- List the who, what, when, where, why, and how of this photo.
- List 10 or more verbs to describe the subject's action or state of being in this photo.
- List 10 or more emotions to describe the subject's action or state of being in this photo.
- Create a caption using only emojis.
- Caption this in five words.
Do you need photo inspiration? We love the New York Times.
Brainstorming Bell Ringers
Sometimes a five-minute brain dump is all you need to break out of a slump.
- Looking at the school events calendar for the week, list different approaches you could take to cover each event in a table labeled before, during, and after.
- Design a unique "map" page showcasing the school campus and highlighting key locations, such as classrooms, the cafeteria, and outdoor spaces.
- Create a visual timeline of major school events throughout the year, using icons or symbols to represent each event.
- List 10 “hacks” that make school easier for you.
- Create a mini infographic showcasing interesting statistics or facts about an aspect of the school year.
- Design a series of icons or symbols to represent different academic subjects, extracurricular activities, clubs and organizations, and sports teams in the yearbook.
- Sketch a "Behind the Scenes" spread showcasing the yearbook team’s work so far.
- List teachers, labs, projects, field trips, and assignments that challenged you to think creatively or outside the box.
- [Display unused yearbook photos of note in a "Yearbook Story Idea" station.] Consider uncovered aspects of the school year and brainstorm three ways to get them in the yearbook.
Use These Bell Ringers to Model a Yearbook Critique
Every student (and adviser) who helps produce the yearbook puts their work on display. No other group of students’ homework is hanging around 10, 20, or 50 years later like a yearbook. Boom. That said, use these critique prompts to reinforce positive comments.
- [Display a spread] Sketch the layout and identify each component (e.g. gutter and caption).
- List the elements we used to create a sense of unity and flow throughout the yearbook. What are there recurring visual motifs or elements that tie the pages together?
- [Display three spreads from your yearbook] Give five specific examples of how these spreads carry out our theme.
- Using an in-progress spread, give five examples of how your design connects to the remainder of the yearbook.
- [Display a spread] Sketch the layout. Identify the primary and secondary design elements and explain whether the hierarchy of information is clear.
- Reflect on a memorable moment from a previous yearbook. Analyze the elements that made the module, spread, or story engaging.
Two things:
- Start with examples of strong design from your students to highlight the wins.
- Keep it technical. When students use terms like eyeline, dominance, and alignment, there is a specific element to which we can attend versus “I don’t like it.”
Writing Prompts for Reflection
Sometimes, students need time and space to be introspective. These bell ringers are less about the how of yearbook and more about the why. After answering them in class, try using them for interview topics for other students to use in personality profiles or sidebars.
- If you could give one piece of advice to future students, what would it be and why?
- What is one thing you learned about yourself this year that you didn't know before?
- Describe a moment when you felt proud of yourself and explain why it was significant to you.
- If you could choose one word to summarize your overall experience in this school, what would it be and why?
- Share a story about a time when you overcame a challenge or obstacle and what you learned from it.
- Describe a teacher or staff member with action words and explain how they influenced you.
- Share a funny or embarrassing moment that happened to you during the school year.
- Share a piece of advice you received from someone that changed your mind.
- If you could create a new school tradition, what would it be and why?
- Describe a time when you felt like you made a positive difference in someone else's life.
- What is one thing you wish you had known as a freshman/sophomore/junior that you know now as a senior?
- Describe a moment when you felt like you truly belonged and were part of a community.
- If you could interview any historical figure, who would it be, and what five questions would you ask them?
- Share a piece of advice you would give to incoming freshmen and explain why you think it's important.
- Reflect on a moment when you felt inspired or motivated by someone else's actions or achievements.
- Share a quote or motto that has guided you throughout this school year and explain its significance to you.
- If you could go back and change one decision you made this year, what would it be and why?
- Describe a meaningful friendship.
- Reflect on a time when you had to step out of your comfort zone and how it contributed to your personal growth.
- What would you want to ask or know about your future self?
- Describe a memorable moment from a school event or celebration and why it was special to you.
By choosing to incorporate bell ringers, you’re optimizing instructional time by utilizing the initial minutes of class effectively. By engaging students immediately, you’ll minimize transitional periods and idle time, ensuring that yearbooking (and learning) begin promptly.
Yearbook debriefing: a summer reflection
Now that your yearbook is a wrap and there’s nothing but sunshine ahead, it’s nice to take some time to reflect on your achievement. You may not want to spend all summer analyzing your yearbook (and who does?), but here are some quick "yearbook debriefing" tasks to help set yourself up for the new school year:
Bask in your success.
You did it! We hope you feel accomplished, proud, and gratified. First and foremost, this is the perfect time to round up your team to celebrate a job well done. Whether it’s a picnic in the park, a backyard super soaker battle, a trip to a local amusement park, or a pizza party at the pool, gathering everyone together is a great way to close this chapter (pun intended!).
A shared celebration is a morale boost, a “thank you,” and a fantastic way to show everyone how fun yearbooking is as you ride that wave of camaraderie into the upcoming year.
Solicit and evaluate feedback.
Whether utilizing an informal compilation of comments or a more formal survey or meeting, it’s helpful to evaluate the yearbook from the experience of your school community. This process can include everything from design and content to distribution and will be invaluable during your yearbook debriefing.
While we all would prefer kudos to criticism (here are some tips for dealing with complaints), your audience's honest feedback is crucial to improving and enhancing your yearbook program. Additionally, considering suggestions and allowing people to feel heard goes a long way toward creating a solid yearbook culture.
Analyze growth opportunities.
When doing your yearbook debriefing, looking for ways to refine your process is essential. Did you and your team encounter any challenges building or marketing your book? Can you enhance your collaboration process? Is there room for improvement in your workflow or organization? If your timeline proved challenging, have you considered a company that allows you to control your deadline?
Lay the fall foundation.
Remember to take a few minutes to set yourself up for fall success by verifying details with your publisher (e.g., logging in to confirm your account for next school year). And if you would like to spend some time planning for your next yearbook over the summer, here are three steps to kick off another fantastic year of capturing your school’s spirit. Here’s hoping you can do all your prep work poolside!
5 yearbook volunteers to recruit
The first step in creating the perfect yearbook is recruiting your ideal yearbook volunteers. In a perfect world, each group member will bring a unique set of strengths to the table while working cohesively with one another. We’ve identified five personality types to consider as you begin assembling your “dream team,” along with best practices for guiding them along the path to print-ready.
1. Mom-a-razzi
There may be a parent or two on campus with professional photography experience, and that’s super. It’s no longer a requirement with many smartphones. For the scale of your yearbook project, you may need a class or grade parent (think an old-school journalism beat).
These parents are taking photos already, so you’re not challenging them beyond a simple, “Please take photos of other people’s children.”
Remember, you can easily build a yearbook if you have the content.
2. The Gatekeeper
If your team is not comprised of students and fellow staff members, you need an on-campus stakeholder on the VIP list. This person will be able to get you the inside scoop on school happenings, including the best way to sneak into classrooms for academics photos or how to set up shared photo folders with the faculty.
3. The Social Maven
Part yearbook hypeman, part yearbook marketer, this person will be in the know: stories, events, and students. She will take care of your sales campaigns and make sure everyone knows how, when, and where to buy the yearbook.
4. The Type-A Virgo
Do you want your yearbook to have a cohesive look? Do you want pages proofed and copy-edited? The Type A Virgo is your go-to for organization and project management.
5. The Cruise Director
While this yearbook volunteer isn’t the captain of the proverbial ship, his role as designated fun officer is clutch. He’s collaborating with the Social Maven on your next marketing campaign and coordinating a yearbook distribution party with school staff. (More than likely, this person is also in charge of several other committees to build community and school spirit.)
Managing Yearbook Volunteers
Now that you’ve identified your dream team, here are a few tips for managing the workload.
1. Create and Communicate the Plan
Build a project plan to determine your deadlines, tasks, and roles. We love beginning with a yearbook ladder to identify coverage and determine the yearbook page count.
2. Follow Up, Follow Up, Follow Up
Monthly check-ins, volunteer work nights, and ongoing communication help ensure the job you started will be completed. We’ve heard from volunteers that they feel their work is valuable with regular communication and seeing their contributions in action. Because their time (and yours) is valuable, make sure communications
- Are timely: give yearbook volunteers what they need when they need it. Only the Type A Virgo needs her March responsibilities on September 14 (and we love her for it).
- Have a set goal: predetermine the action(s) the team should take as a result of your communication. Do you need responses for the potluck or help tagging photos?
- Demonstrate appreciation: while I’ll never grow weary of hearing I’m awesome, meaningful feedback resonates much more. In your communications, try to highlight contributions often (e.g., “Because of all the Fun Run photos Tameka and Evelyn uploaded, Javier is now designing the layout! Thanks, team!”) and show how they benefit the yearbook.
3. Celebrate Often and Address Problems Early
When pages are locked, celebrate! When portraits are uploaded, celebrate! These festivities can be as simple as meeting for coffee after drop off or a dessert night in someone’s home.
Conversely, if things aren’t working out, be like Vanilla Ice and solve it.
Advice for dealing with complaints
When a parent, staff member, or student approaches with a complaint about the yearbook, it can be challenging not to react or take it personally. Common yearbook complaints range from missed order deadlines to incomplete coverage (e.g., “I’m not in the yearbook enough”), and typos. Taking the right approach will help you validate the concern and move to a proactive solution for your yearbook program.
Listen to the Complaint
“Take a deep breath, remain calm, and remember it's not personal,” Abby Oxendine, Treering’s Community Advocate Team (CAT) Director, said. “The person is angry with the product, policy, or process, not you.”
Give the person making the complaint your full attention and listen carefully to what they have to say. Allow them to express their concerns without interruption and empathize with their situation.
“The reality of their concern is real to them,” Yearbook Hero Chris Frost said. “It is important to understand that while your world includes every student, to the parent their kid is their world.”
Ask for Specific Details
Ask the person to provide specific details about what they're unhappy with in the yearbook. This will help you to better understand the issue and to determine the best course of action. Oxendine suggests summarizing their main points in a confident, positive tone to show you are listening. This also ensures you know exactly what the complaint entails.
Sample starter sentences include
- "I understand your concerns…"
- "Thank you for sharing your concerns with me…"
- "We will do all we can to fix these issues..." (Only use if you can fix the issue, e.g., ship a yearbook home to someone who missed the original deadline.)
Offer a Solution
Frost said, “Sometimes just being able to express the frustration is resolution enough. They may not want your solutions, just to voice their concerns.”
In the case a solution is warranted—and feasible—commit to what is possible. If you set a follow-up action, make sure you call or email back by the scheduled time. It’s important at this stage you never overpromise.
Document the Complaint
Recording the complaint and the steps you took to address it will help you to track patterns and improve future yearbooks for future editions.
Follow Up
Send a follow-up email detailing the resolution. You might even consider offering the student or parent a position to help the yearbook team to help avoid issues in the future. This will show that you care about their opinion and are committed to improving the yearbook.
Personal anecdote: I had a teacher complain once about the portrait section who became the official portrait proofer for the yearbook.
Avoiding the Top 3 Yearbook Complaints
When your hard work is on display and is a lasting keepsake, you want it to be the best reflection of your school community and your yearbook team. Here are ways to avoid the big three.
1. Missed Order Deadlines
We know: you sent emails, used a school-wide robocall, posted on social media, made a viral video with your principal, and someone still didn't know when, where, or how to order the yearbook.
How Treering Can Help
"Volunteering to create my kids’ yearbook is a lot of work, but with Treering I never worry about the outcome. I know Treering will help me anytime a problem arises."
Erin M., Treering Yearbook Specialist and elementary school yearbook coordinator
- The integrated marketing suite in each Treering account allows editors to send purchase and customization reminder emails, order free flyers, download social graphics, and share purchase links.
- Never tell a parent or student no again: your storefront is always open, and they can purchase an old yearbook, even years later.
- Mix up your marketing campaigns with our social calendar.
2. Incomplete Coverage
Some parents and students may feel that the yearbook did not adequately cover certain students, events, or activities. To ensure that all events and activities are adequately covered in the yearbook, you can create a detailed coverage plan when drafting your ladder at the beginning of the year and assign staff members to cover each event.
Consider adding a note to acknowledge those who did take advantage of the opportunities to submit content and photos. (This is also a subtle reminder parents and students had opportunities throughout the year to be more involved in coverage.) A simple “Thank you parents and students who shared their photos and completed our surveys. We love telling your stories.” will go far.
How Treering Can Help
- Shared folders provide your stakeholders with opportunities to share their photos. Yearbook Hero Lauren Casteen uses these photos that the yearbook staff may have missed, such as a band event hours away.
- Community portraits allow parents the opportunity to upload a portrait of a student who may have missed picture day or joined in the second semester.
- Tag your photos and monitor coverage with the index report, a real-time listing of who is in the book.
- Parents and students can tell the story of their year with custom pages, two free pages that appear only in their copy of the yearbook.
2. Missing or Incorrect Information
One of the most common complaints is when a student's name, photo, or information is missing or incorrect in the yearbook.
When applicable, remind parents that this is a student-published item, while you do your best to facilitate the book, students have creative control and lead how the book is done. It’s their homework that is on display for a lifetime.
If it’s a volunteer job to create this living, breathing historical document of life for hundreds of kids at a moment in time. That is a heavy burden to carry alone. (Most professional journalists work in a team!)
“Parent volunteers have enough on their plates with being good parents, spouses, employees of their jobs, and volunteers to boot! Having to field phone calls from confused parents shouldn’t be another feather in their cap—unless they want it.”
Katie P., Customer Success Manager and elementary school yearbook coordinator
Yearbook Disclaimer
Even the New York Times has a disclaimer. The yearbook colophon is a great place to add yours, whether you are a volunteer army putting together the book or a group of student journalists. It can be as simple as "We have done our best to ensure the accuracy of the information in the yearbook and apologize for any errors."
Tips for Next Year
To proactively combat errors, you can check your records and the student's school records to ensure all the information is correct. Another resource is the ever-changing school calendar.
Treering’s Customer Success Team recommends having a second set of eyes proof your book. If that’s not possible (we know a lot of yearbook heroes who do it solo), walk away for a few days then come back fresh. It's hard to see these little mistakes when you have been staring at the book for days.
How Treering Can Help
Remember, the key to handling complaints about the yearbook is to remain calm, professional, and focused on finding a solution that works for everyone. By addressing complaints positively and constructively, you can improve the yearbook and build trust with your yearbook stakeholders. Remember, in the end, you cannot please 100% of people 100% of the time.
Yearbook proofing tools
Raise your hand if you do your best proofing after the yearbook goes to print. We've all had that cringe moment when you notice two baseball players' names interchanged in the sports section or the student who joined the second semester flowed with the wrong class. We can all agree: proofing is critical for the yearbook creation process. Consistency and the proper tools will help you ensure no mistakes slip through the cracks.
One-Time: Printed Proof
Would you like a copy of your yearbook before distribution day to check your fonts, colors, layout, cover texture, and photo quality? We've got you.
Once your yearbook is approximately 70% complete, order a printed proof of your yearbook to review the following:
- Cover alignment and bleed
- Portraits (accuracy, name size, and font)
- Gutter
- Bleed and margins
- Font choices, sizes, and colors
- Background contrast
- Spelling and attribution
- Photo clarity and color
Monthly: Use PDF Proofs
Print out a hard copy. Errors that are missed on the screen often jump out on paper. Create PDF proofs of class, event, club, and athletic pages to provide to the appropriate stakeholders for their review. Ask them:
- Is the content accurate? Is anything missing?
- Are names spelled correctly and referencing the correct person?
- Do these photos accurately represent the page's content and our student body?
Remember they need some time to review it, and should it require changes, you will need time to incorporate them.
Text Proofreading Tips
Read all captions, pull quotes, and headlines out loud. It may feel silly, and once you do it, you will see and hear the value:
- Tone, word choice, and sentence structure pop when you read them out loud
- If all your writing sounds the same, you may want to mix up sentence structure or type
Proofing Yearbook Quotes
Proofing is essential if your school uses expanded captions, pull quotes, or <gasp> senior quotes. A transcription tool for interviews, such as Otter.ai, which integrates with Google Docs, is handy for recording conversations.
Quotes must not be taken out of context. We do not alter quotations, even to correct grammatical errors or word usage. If a quotation is flawed because of grammar or lack of clarity, it may be paraphrased in a way that is completely true to the original quote. If a quote's meaning is too murky to be paraphrased accurately, it should not be used. Ellipses should be used rarely and must not alter the speaker’s meaning.
AP Style Guide
(Here's an article from CBS News and one from Slate that addresses language learners to review with your students.)
Sharing is Caring: Use Printed Proofs to Tease the Book
This isn't the first time we’ll make this suggestion, and it won't be the last.
Ongoing: Rubrics and Checklists
The best time to begin proofing yearbook spreads is after you’ve finished each page and well before you need to go to print. Informal editing can happen on screen with an editor or adviser. We also highly recommend peer editing on a projector with the whole team. Use a rubric to help guide the conversation.
Proofing and editing aren't a one-and-done thing. (Sorry not sorry!) It takes time to craft the perfect story and to create a solid layout from scratch. And if DIY is not your thing, the thousands of layout templates in the Treering library are at your disposal.