RPS Lower School
December 2024
Page 1
THE ARGO JR. Included in this issue
RPS hosts the 2024 Diwali show
Meet the new RPS faculty
Girls Soccer wins the State Championship!
All About The Argo Jr. A total of twenty-two 3rd through 5th grade students signed up to join the club and take on the role of junior reporters. The club advisor, Upper School English teacher Ms. Angelos, was lucky enough to have four excellent Upper School newspaper editors join her in leading the group: Renee Bou Mansour, ’25, Michael Chang, ’25, Kelli Chang, ’25, and Raislyn Palmer, ’27.
This year, for the first time, RPS Lower School has its very own newspaper: The Argo Jr. A group of Lower School students met weekly this fall to work on creating the newspaper’s first issue, which you are now holding in your hands! The idea for the newspaper club started last spring when 5th grader Basil McGinty started thinking about how great it would be for the Lower School to produce its very own newspaper.
Basil decided to write her own version of a lower school newspaper, writing a few articles about important events at the time, including the solar eclipse, the New Jersey earthquake, and the 4th grade Journeys project. She then shared her newspaper with Lower School principal Ms. Tolia, who immediately proposed that a new ASP club be created, and thus the Lower School Newspaper Club was born.
At first, the club members reviewed the Upper School newspaper, The Argo, to learn about which elements go into a standard publication. They reviewed the 5 W’s & 1 H of newspaper reporting (who, what, where, when, why and how). Then, the group had its first “bullpen meeting,” in which student reporters pitched story ideas. Students spent weeks researching, drafting interview questions, and writing rough drafts of their articles, before polishing up their final edits. Our goal was to create a newspaper infused with a positive outlook and focused on our RPS community. We hope you enjoy this first issue!