From A&M to Jostens to CHS: Harris brings journalism experience to yearbook classroom

Coppell High School Round-Up yearbook advisor Sallyanne Harris majored in journalism at Texas A&M and has taught yearbook for 18 years. This is her eighth year working at CHS. She strives to create a professional environment to help students showcase the school and feature students  of Coppell. She has also worked for Jostens for six years. Her husband, John Harris, used to teach history at CHS until 2017 and now teaches at Victory Place. 

Why did you decide to pursue journalism? 

I was always a good writer and it was just one of my gifts. I really enjoyed it. I wrote for the Texas A&M Battalion , which is their school newspaper, and I enjoyed it so much and so I decided to get my teaching certificate as well so I could teach journalism. 

Why is journalism important?

It is like the fourth branch of government. It is helpful in checks and balances and getting the truth out. It’s a venue for the public, the average citizen to know what’s going on in the world with their government. 

How was it like working for Jostens? 

I really enjoyed it. I got to travel and see a lot of different schools and help them get started on their yearbook and give some suggestions on their yearbook and that kind of thing. I love Josten’s but I really want my own classroom. 

Why did you start working at CHS as a yearbook adviser? 

I loved it, the school had such a great reputation and it was close to my home. The principal at that time was Mike Jasso and when I interviewed with him he talked to me about how this school expects excellence and that was intriguing for me. I was excited that they hired me and I could be a part of that. 

What’s your favorite part about being the yearbook adviser?

The amazing students. I am so blessed to get amazing students every year on yearbook staff. They themselves want to raise the bar every year and do better in the year before. I am just amazed they can do that. When I was in high school, I could not do what they are doing now. They lead so well and they are very detail oriented as well. 

Why is yearbook important?

For posterity, for history, that’s one reason. To just capture the year. No one’s ever thrown away a yearbook on purpose. They’ll hang on to it forever and some of the students here will be famous and so the news media will be looking at their yearbooks to see what that person did in high school. Yearbooks serve as a historical reference and they also can be a statistical reference. 

How do you instill journalistic ideals within the yearbook program? 

We have three levels of yearbook, YearbookI, II and III. In Yearbook I, the students are learning a lot of the basics of how to write and the fundamentals of fairness, accuracy, how to put sentences together into a story. From there the editors pretty much take control [and] help guide the first year staffers and teach them and they become part of a small group. Leadership has different levels in the yearbook.

What does scholastic journalism mean to you? Why is it important?

I know the student press is important for several reasons. Not only for teaching young journalists how to become professional journalists but also for preserving the rights that students have to tell the news in a fair and accurate way. 

How do you and your students think of new ideas to make the yearbook better than the previous years? 

Not only do we brainstorm within our staff, we also reach out to different groups in the school and try to ask them how they want to be covered like band or football. Often times we send out surveys or we interview coaches and try to find out what they want to see in the yearbook and how they want to be represented in the yearbook. That’s very helpful to us. 

Do you think photojournalism is important compared to written words? 

They each have their role. Photographs are always what catches people’s eye first. You’d rather look at a picture than a bunch of grey type. Pictures need to tell a story themselves and they need to capture the reader’s attention. But the story goes deeper of course and tells what you can’t see in the picture and that’s what we encourage our staffers to do when they’re writing captions or stories. What else happened that we can’t see in that picture and to tell the full story.

How has yearbook evolved from the year when you first started at CHS to now in 2020?

The first few years we were still a little more [of a] fun book and the editors each year have wanted to refine the look of the book so that it’s more professional. They really wanted a clean, well thought out design. They have taken critiques from different judges and different national organizations and listened to their advice. I think we have tried to include more personal stories each year. 

We are trying to represent all the various groups and ethnicities that are here and trying to be very aware of all the different people that go to our school and how they help make up CHS. I don’t know if we did that as well back then when I first started but it’s really a goal of ours now to really try to capture people in every aspect of their lives. 

How do you think yearbook along will evolve in the future? 

When I first started, we didn’t have digital cameras. We didn’t create the yearbook online like we do now. It was all very physical. We had papers and rulers. I don’t know, because its web-based now I wish that I was futuristic enough to be able to tell you how it’s gonna be like in a few years. But people often ask me if I think the physical book will go away and that it will be digital. 

I think there will always be a physical book. I think people want to have that to put on their shelf to show their grandkids to take it with them to high school reunions and I think there is a need to have that physical book. 

What is it like to be a grandmother?

It’s the best thing ever. My granddaughter is so cute. But they live in Florida so I don’t get to see them very often but we’ll go out for Easter and see them and we see them most school holidays so it’s really fun. 

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