Beyond the Surface
I was initially inspired to write this piece because one of my friends, who identified as non-binary, would often bring up how they were misgendered, or not mentioned in the curriculum at all. I interviewed two different non-binary students, both of whom had been misgendered, mostly unintentionally. This story proved to me that there isn't always a news angle-- sometimes stories are important because an issue needs to have attention brought to it.
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Unwelcome At Home
For our story assignments during the AAJA's JCamp, we were dropped off in the Little Tokyo area of Los Angeles with notebooks, phones, and whatever else we thought we needed. Walking into the visitor center, I encountered and talked to a woman behind the counter. She revealed her mother was in the Poston incarceration camp. I had the privilege of speaking to her mother for my longest interview yet, going on for an hour and 45 minutes. To me, this story shows the interplay of history and journalism-- telling stories of the past and their connections to modern day issues and events in communities.
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Breaking the Silence
This story originated from an idea to continue covering marginalized communities in my school after writing about non-binary students, with the aim being to give members of the community a space to share their experiences. This is one of my favorite types of stories to write-- stories that give a deeply personal look at someone's experiences, both at school and in this country as a whole. While one story is never representative of a whole community, being able to show the experiences of a member of one of thousands of indigenous communities was truly amazing and a reminder of the power of storytelling.
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From a new perspective
While originally intended for online, this story ended up being much larger than me and my co-writer intended. We ended up requesting data from the registrar for the story, a process that itself took a week. I wasn't in AP Statistics at the time, but we went to ask the teacher for help on representing the data. Combined with personal experiences of students of color, it really helped flesh out the story. This reminded me that stories can be enhanced with data, and when combined with deeply personal looks at someone involved with the issue associated with the story, make an effective piece.
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Meeting Mr. Mayfield
At the beginning of this year, my adviser approached me with a story assignment from an unusual place-- East Lansing Info. Usually, he wasn't the one to assign me stories for ELi. Together, with the Portrait writer who was originally assigned to the story, we began writing and interviewing. We didn't know much about our new principal, but through our interview, I got a much better understanding of who he was, and I believe this improved how well we were able to represent him. The initial story was published in around 2 weeks, on ELi, with our own version being published a few weeks later.
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Optimism, Surprise, ConcernWhen I started writing this piece, I had no idea that teachers would feel so strongly about either reopening or vaccinations. But once I emailed the teachers, I realized almost immediately upon reading their responses that they were beyond relieved to finally have a success in an extremely hard year. This story was written in tandem with a news story by staffers in a team with an earlier online cycle. Reading what the teachers had felt made me happy to be telling their stories, especially in a publication that primarily focuses on the students of our school.
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