PROVIDENCE – Faculty Adviser Catherine Maloney beams with pride as she describes the eighth graders who were on her newspaper staff at Blessed Sacrament School in Providence. She calls them “prolific writers,” and attributes the newspaper’s recent successes to their talents as writers. The Mustard Seed was named the runner-up this year in The Providence Journal’s scholastic journalism contest in the middle and junior high school newspaper category.
“This was the best group I’ve had,” she says cautiously, reluctant to offend students from previous years. “This group had the most talent, the most to bring to it, and this year everything just gelled.”
Maloney came to the job of faculty adviser five years ago when, during her retirement from teaching in North Providence, she was asked by the principal at Blessed Sacrament to work part-time advising the newspaper staff and other students on their writing.
In that time, she has been able to make many improvements to the paper, and has entered it into The Journal’s contest every year. This is the fifth year running that The Mustard Seed has had a winner in the individual writing competition: Savannah FitzGerald won for a three-part series detailing her trip to Europe. This is the first year the paper has placed in the overall category.
The Mustard Seed is staffed by nine enthusiastic eighth graders who met once a week throughout the school year to produce the quarterly, which covers happenings around Blessed Sacrament as well as teacher spotlights and editorials.
These students are as proud of their accomplishments as Maloney is. Talkative feature writer Allegra Donadio fielded calls to her cell phone while excitedly exclaiming, “Nobody will match our talent!”
When asked about her award-winning three-part series, “Celtic Discovery,” FitzGerald is quiet and slow to brag, but her classmates and adviser pick up where she leaves off. Maloney reminds her of The Journal’s comments about her story: “They said they felt like they were there with you,” she says. The other students agree and praise FitzGerald’s descriptive writing style.
Regardless of their individual achievements, The Mustard Seed’s staff works as a team.
The students often share bylines and work together on stories. For instance, feature writer JennaTramonti shared her byline on the teacher spotlight features with fellow writers Allegra Donadio and Stephanie Nacci.
Feature writer Graham Carter said, “We try not to give one person more than anyone else.” Tramonti adds that working on the paper “helps you to know how to work with a group because you’re with all of these people who are working just as hard as you.”
Maloney adds that although she did have to chase down a few stories as deadlines approached, “[the students] always came through in the end. They’re very dependable.”
As for next year’s newspaper staff, the group gave mixed advice. Tramonti advised that the students be committed to the paper, “because it is a big commitment.” But other students are quick to qualify those well-wishes. Donadio oozed confidence as she urged next year’s staff to “do well, but not as well as us!” Editor-in-chief Brian Kane advises the new staff to “make sure their articles are good,” and to “keep up our good reputation.”
Maloney smiles at her students’ pride in their work and says, “Confidence exists here, too, you can see.”
Portsmouth Abbey High School’s newspaper, The Beacon, was the third runner-up in the Best High School Newspaper Category. Also, Micaela Adams won first place in the sports story category, Tad Walgreen won first place in the photojournalism category, and Sara Munda won second place in the News Story Category, all write for The Beacon.
