Feature Writing
'...Overall, it's fatiguing': Minority students, teachers open up about constant struggle against discrimination
This story was directly in response to a recent racist incident at our school but was also indirectly in response to the marginalization that students and teachers of color at our school constantly face. I interviewed minority and students at our majority-white school and combined their stories about experiences with racism with what they thought could be done for the future to decrease instances of racism at my school. I had to work to pick out the most impactful quotes and consult with the Black Student Union Sponsor for the best way to label my sources. This story opened my eyes to what these students and teachers go through on a daily basis.
Undocumented students: Finding hope through struggle
This story was written not in response to a certain incident but more to shed light on the general nature of these students' experiences considering the political climate of the time. This is a kind of story I hadn't had experience with; my sources were so protected that I didn't even know them. My classmate interviewed friends of hers that were undocumented using my interview questions and I created pseudonyms for them for the story. I used a narrative format to help the reader understand the things that undocumented students constantly have to worry about.
Addressing the elephant (and donkey) in the room: Capitol insurrection spurs larger discussion over nature of political conversation in school
This is a story I wrote recently with one of our feature editors, Kate Gross. The story has three main parts: a news-esque first few paragraphs explaining our district's response to the insurrection, a section about what teachers thought of this response, and then a larger discussion with many different sources about the nature of political discussion at school: if it happens enough, the flaws in political discussion at our school, and more. We had over 30 pages of sources and were careful to balance out our story by picking the sources that represented both ends of the political spectrum and everywhere in between.
Overcoming Online: Science department adaptive, optimistic despite obstacles
This story, written in September, focuses on the struggles of the science department in remote learning, which were mostly because so many of the classes revolve around hands-on learning. To hear from every corner of the department, I referred to the master schedule for teacher sources and made sure to incorporate student or teacher perspectives from the base classes of biology, chemistry and physics as well as other electives. I also interviewed the department chair for a discussion regarding future changes in curriculum.
Evolution of remote learning: students, staff see general upgrades but still room to improve
This is a story I wrote in mid-November after our school had experienced about six months' worth of remote learning meaning that it was time to address the differences between the fall and the spring with regards to remote learning, mainly to get some student and teacher perspectives on what things they felt have improved as well as what they think still needs to be addressed. I worked to include external sources that revolved around the learning gap created when students are not in-person and sifted through old emails to provide visual aid of the sequence of events and fact-check my dates and times. Still, it could've been improved by interviewing a few more students as most of the quotes were from teachers.