Keep Calm and Write On

Knock Knock Knock, she heard as the teacher stopped talking and made a signal for a student to open the door. A girl stepped in holding various folded papers, which she gave to the teacher. When the teacher started passing them out, she could not help but grow curious as the seconds passed on. The moment the teacher got in front of her, a second of surprise rushed through her but she quickly grabbed the letter and opened it. “Congratulations! You…..” She could not believe what she was reading, but knew that wanted to remember the moment forever.

“I was actually very happy. I felt accomplished that i had set out my goal to come into yearbook and to be successful so i had made that goal. So it was the sense of accomplishment and happiness at the same time that I had made yearbook,” said freshman Alix Garcia.

Before becoming part of the The Nest, The Nestline or The Talon, students need to take Journalism, which is a class that trains students to be ready for the challenges these three fields bring. Recently certain Journalism students were chosen to be part of the 2016-2017 staff, getting their letters from Shetye Cypher, who besides being the journalism teacher, is also in charge of the different departments.

“They have to have good grades and be responsible to get chosen.Their personality is a big part of whether they get put in yearbook or magazine,” Cypher said.

In Journalism, the students study the laws of media, the AP stylebook and how to write various types of articles. Later, they start learning Adobe software and page design. Freshmen Garcia, Alex Beyk and Caroline Warman, among others, will be joining different departments this fall of 2016.

“I didn’t know that I could get into the photography staff without taking photojournalism, so I wasn’t really confident about that,” Beyk said.

Many of the students in Journalism set the goal to get into the staff, but only a few are selected. Every school year certain students get a letter announcing they got into the staff and the students feel ecstatic when they receive that letter. They put their best effort onto their papers, working towards that aspiration, which leads them to feeling accomplished once they know the effort was worth it.

“I joined journalism because I initially wanted to do yearbook, but I decided I liked writing and when I got the letter I got excited and surprised. I was confident about getting on to staff and now it’s something I can be proud of and just say that I did,” Warman said.