Journalism In Review

This year, our West Middle School Journalism class’ were making article after article and writing about informational topics to many different audiences (And it was really fun too) :). Mrs. Medley as the Journalism teacher and many students writing captivating articles. Carly Cahill and Maggie Francis were the editors in chief for the school website, thebite.org . I think that this is one of the best class’ we have taken at West. If you are a new coming seventh grader we would 100% recommend Mrs. Medleys Journalism class. Mrs. Medley is such a sweet teacher and she will be happy to read your articles and answer your writing questions. But she is not afraid to tell you that your article was as good or a piece of dirt. You need a balance. We have balance.

Journalism is all about thinking outside of the box and writing about interesting news to inform the community. thebite.org is mainly directed to West students and teachers. Many people think that journalism is a blow-off class, but once you get into it for a few days you realize that it takes a lot of work ethic and patience. You have to wait for a lot of things. For most articles, you have to interview a student, teacher, the principal, coaches of teams and clubs, and many more. And nine times out of ten you will have at least one person not be able to be interviewed or they don’t answer/see your request email. You have a lead role in the school website when you are in the Journalism course. It teaches you how to use your words wisely and create stories that are informational and fun to read (because nobody wants to spend three days on an article and have nobody read it).

In the class, you get to pick your own topics, which we think is a great decision on Mrs. Medleys part. You get to be able to decide what you want to write about. You can choose if you want to write about the track team, or if you want to do a profile about Mr. Watson, you have a lot of freedom when it comes to your writing.

When we think of Journalism the first word we think of is teamwork. Everybody is working together because we all want your writing to be the best that it could be. All of the students are working to create a website for the school that makes students want to be informed about the school and what’s happening around Plymouth. We also have a few writers that enjoy writing about topics that they enjoy, such as Playstation Vs. Xbox and 10 Fun Things to do on Your Time Off.

In Journalism, we love to look at sweet comments from students who read our articles. It’s very nice to see that people enjoy to look at our articles and read what we have to say about a topic we wrote about.

Mrs. Medley told us “My favorite part [about Journalism] is watching you (the students) get excited… I’ve learned that seventh graders love to write, and they are great at writing when its a topic of their choice”. This is Mrs. Medley’s first year teaching Journalism at West (or just in general). She said that Mr. Smiley (West’s Principal) wanted a seventh-grade elective centered around writing and ELA. Mrs. Medley first wanted the class to have a printed newspaper, but that would be too expensive and she would have to “cut articles short to make them fit”, and that’s why they changed and made an electronic newspaper website instead.

She thinks that the Journalism classes were great this year. The two semesters were so creative and there were great writers with imaginative thinking that made the articles unique.

Pictures. Every article needs one. At the beginning of the semester, Mrs. Medley takes you to the gym to take a few snapshots for a good picture. It teaches you how to be less shy and ask for a picture when you would like one. It also shows you how to take interesting pictures that draw people into your article and now want to read your writing.

If you are thinking about taking Journalism, take it. The class is so much fun and you won’t regret it!