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 definitely 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 alongside a fellow editor on staff. The story has three main parts: an explicit, news-style 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 everyday discussions of politics 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.