The Importance of High School Journalism

The+Importance+of+High+School+Journalism

Amya Hentschel, Writer

Mr. Cornell, an English teacher at Wyoming High School teaches an elective journalism class 1st and 4th hour. This is a class usually offered to high school juniors and seniors who have extra elective hours but occasionally is presented to underclassmen. With Journalism only being an elective some may ask, “Why is this class important to take?” 

That question has a simple answer: to further allow student expression and to improve the educational well-being of students overall.

Students have a long list of requirements for classes they need to take in order to graduate. For instance, four years of English, four years of math, three science credits, and multiple other history or humanities courses. With all of these essential classes, there is often little room left for students to take classes where they truly get to allow their opinion and interests to rule their direction in the classroom. 

Denise Estefan, the head of Xavier’s journalism program said, “Journalism really helps students to verbally express themselves, which assists in any standardized testing, ACT, SAT, as well as with enriching vocabularies and improving students all across the curriculum.”

When students aren’t getting a place to properly advocate for themselves and the things they care about. So journalism classes are an addition to any mandatory curriculum that would only benefit not only the students but also districts in terms of test scores. 

Having students participate in news telling can broaden the outreach students from the school have not only with each other but also with the community and world around them. 

Gene Policinski, the Vice President and Executive Director of the First Amendment Center Nashville, said “ If schools want to motivate and have motivated students who are involved in a multiplicity of activities, clearly journalism is a significant component of that.” 

Without a class where students can write and report on everything happening around them, you are squandering the social implications they could have. This could also mean ramifications in terms of students not feeling like they have a place to properly advocate for things they are passionate about.

One of the things that I am most appreciative of is that Wyoming offers Journalism to almost every student that wants to take it. And in this class were are able to write about anything and all that interests us. 

This is why this year Charli Martz and I plan on making a subsection on the Wolf Pack Press website that features true crime and other real-world events. 

With this, I hope more students and schools around us find that they can take what they’re interested in and make something out of it. Letting us write about our passions, count it as a grade, and help us connect to others.