Introduce your students to laying out the design for a school newsletter. This can introduce the ideas of symmetry on the page as well as maintaining the flow of an article without jumping around the newsletter to different pages several times. Students can learn about choosing font size for the articles as well as choosing where to place photographs or graphics to break up the text on a page. Designing a header for the newsletter is another aspect of graphic design for them to learn.
Choose several members of your class to be in charge of sections of the newsletter. These students get a feel of what it's like to be an editor as part of their project. The students must hand out writing assignments to their classmates for that particular section. The editor is then responsible for reviewing the work of the other student's before approving it for publication by the editor-in-chief, which is the teacher.
Choose several students to write articles for the newspaper based on live interviews that they conduct. This will teach the students the skill of interviewing as part of the ninth grade newsletter project. Assign someone for the students to interview, such as a teacher in the school that just won and award or an athlete on one of the high school sports teams. This will give them experience in interviewing both peers and those in positions of authority. Students should finish the interview assignment by writing the article.
Increase the number of people that read your school newsletter. Introduce the students to marketing as part of this project. Ask students to design posters to place around the school advertising the next edition of the paper. They should also create a short 30 to 60 second announcement for the school's morning announcements highlighting the upcoming edition. This will give them experience in writing advertisements in both print and for radio to advertise a written publication.