Dear Jackie,

I facilitated a class magazine in one of the schools I taught in a village in the early 1990's. The school did not have any reading facility. I saw that some students were interested in reading. Quite a few were good at creative writing in Nepali. I thought the students were capable of producing something interesting for reading. So, I decided intuitively to start a wall magazine: a magazine to be put up on the wall of the school.

So, I held a meeting with students of Grades 8, 9 and 10 and shared my idea and proposed to form an editorial board. A board of three members was decided upon representing the three classes. Later the board decided that the magazine would come out once a week on Sundays (the first day of the week) and would remain there for the whole week. The three classes would contribute the matters turn wise. They also decided on the content which included one section dedicated for something written in English.

The magazine was published on a standard size chart paper handwritten by the editors with big size letters. They used different colors for different sections. The content included poems, short stories, memoirs, essays, jokes, quizzes, and an editorial. Each Sunday students would come to school to find something to read.

I left the school in the second year of the magazine. One year later I heard that it was discontinued for some reason. However, as long as it ran, it was something for the students to read outside their course and free of cost.

You may try this in your school particularly in situations where resources are scarce. If you have resources, you can go for a quarterly/yearly print magazine.

Good luck.

Laxman from Nepal