This past fall semester was Joaquin Moraga’s (JM) trial run of their new elective class, Journalism. Inspired by Campo’s journalism program, JM wanted to create a class of their own. They gave their issue a spin-off name: The Paw. The Paw has had four issues come out since the beginning of the year including one for Thanksgiving and one for the winter season. They included a history section, a news section, and a crossword puzzle coinciding with the issue’s theme. This layout is similar to Campo’s publication with multiple sections and a crossword puzzle.
This class gives middle schoolers a chance to gain experience by writing for a publication before high school. The JM Journalism teacher, Linda O’Brien, talks about how important this class is to JM: “We make every possible attempt to keep the publication student driven and produced. They find stories, complete interviews and collect photos when appropriate. So far we have lots of enthusiasm and they seem to be having fun with the process.”
It also gives middle schoolers a feel for what they enjoy within journalism and if they want to pursue writing further into their school career. In each edition the editors changed, offering opportunities for students to try new positions in the class, see where they excel, and identify areas of growth. O’Brien said, “we change editors each time so everyone gets an opportunity to see that side of the process too.”
The Paw seems to be a great learning opportunity for middle schoolers. Not only are they learning how to write an article, but within the articles they are learning more about the subject they are writing about. It gives students a chance to research further than they might in other classes. O’Brien said, “We spent the first semester learning the basics of journalistic writing styles since it is so different from narrative or analytical writing that the students do every day.” In the Winter Holiday Edition, Joshua L. wrote about The History of Chanukah which tends to be a lesser known subject.
Since the class is new, O’Brien has been trying to better the class which has been hard: “Unfortunately we have no budget for printing so we mainly publish online editions. We do print a few copies in color and they are available in the library for reading.” Even without a budget, O’Brien said “I am happy to report that there is evidence of [the issues] being read.”
