Here at Colonia High School, we have many different types of classes you can take besides math or English, and one of the best ones to take has to be the Journalism Class.
For me, sitting behind a desk for an hour and a half is absolutely the most miserable experience that anyone has to go through. In Journalism, there’s a plethora of things to do and you get to meet new people every single day. The best part, you’re not sitting taking notes on a lecture. Everyone gets to use a computer for research and to type your article. Students get to select their article topics and generate their own questions when interviewing. Also, students get to take their own photos to accompany their article and for some assignments create videos and interactive widgets for the newspaper website.
The interaction with the community and the school is another great aspect of journalism here at Colonia. You can’t leave the room and talk to other students in math or science can you? In Journalism, you can go anywhere in the school when conducting interviews or to get more help with articles. You can take pictures outside the classroom on your phone or with the professional cameras. You also attend more school events and activities being a Colonia reporter since it is these events this that make great articles for the newspaper.
The best part is seeing the effort and the work you put into it get seen by other people. There’s even awards the newspaper can win. This year Colonia High achieved all six awards and became a Distinguished Site. Not all college applicants can say they wrote for an award winning newspaper. The course also provides personal merits that can be achieved like the Best of SNO Award, which is given to a student who writes a high quality article on any school newspaper that’s uses SNO as their website host site. Submissions of student written articles are submitted and sometimes published by Colonia Corner, the local newspaper in Colonia. Using SNO allows the students in the class to read high school newspapers across the country. That also means that schools and readers across the country and even around the world might be reading articles on the Colonia newspaper.
If social media is up your alley, Journalism at Colonia requires students enrolled in class to have a class twitter account that is updated daily. That’s right, you get a grade from using social media. What other class do you hear your teacher say, “get those tweets in?”
When you leave this class, you can say that you wrote for the school newspaper on your college resume or on a job application. Most students enjoy this class so much that they come back the next school semester or the next school year and take Journalism 2 to share the experience again. Journalism 1 is a prerequisite for Journalism 2. In “J2” students assist writers in “J1” by editing articles and assisting with topic ideas. Everyday, J2 students mange a widget, a section of the newspaper, on the newspaper site, post breaking news, and uploads photos to Instagram. They also create ads, make a photo essay and is in change of a section of the newspaper.
If you like to write, be involved in what’s going on in school, and want your voice to be heard, Journalism might be for you. If you want to improve your writing skills or maybe set yourself apart from a lot of other college applicants, speak to your Guidance Counselor about taking Journalism next year. This class is very underrated, and most students miss the chance to be in it because they think it’s too much work. But, all the work pays off when your articles get published. Lastly, in what other class could your homework be to watch TV, go to the movies or got to a basketball game?
Overall, Journalism is a fun and exciting way to take a break from the standard sit and take-notes-type of classroom, with the benefits of meeting new people and exploring our diverse community.
