My name is Mia Llanez and I am the Vice President of Journalism. This is my first year joining journalism and it has been a great experience. I wish that I joined this class sooner. As the Vice president of the elective, I help the class with article ideas, support what they write about, and how they can be better writers in their stories. It is also my responsibility to partner with my President, Nevaeh Prado, and help her plan out any events we have in the class.
The Journalism class is responsible for running the school newspaper website, PawPrint, and produce a printed version of the paper several times a year. Being part of the PawPrint news team and as a staff reporter is to provide interesting information about events and perspectives going on throughout Los Banos High School. With this role comes improving skills such as social skills, where reports have to interview and talk with the school community whether it be administration, teachers, or students, planning out meetings and taking notes, and just listening to peers with strong kindness.
With each edition, we all come together as a class and discuss any upcoming events with each other. After deciding on an article topic, we have a week to plan an interview, write, and edit before publishing the article to PawPrint. We accomplished two printed editions this year where our newspaper was inserted into The Westside Express newspaper for the community and for people at our school. This was a huge accomplishment for the class because we had to learn how to paginate the paper using Indesign and dropping the completed pages to our printer in Manteca. With the help of Gene Lieb, we were able to make this happen with success. Next year, the class is considering doing website articles and four printed versions. It is a privilege to be a part of the Journalism team and see your name in print. It shows that the staff is involved with the community and has a passion to keep people informed.
If you are not interested in writing articles for Journalism, I do want to point out other things we do in the class. Since we are such a small class, we love to enjoy some team bonding over potlucks! Throughout the year, we have had a potluck for every holiday or before any breaks. Our class family has also played “Secret Santa,” and made “spooky baskets,” for one another. As the Vice President position, it was my job as well to help coordinate these events with everyone else. My favorite potluck had to be when everyone brought breakfast and Nevaeh and I made pancakes for everyone in class.
Even if you have an artistic creative side, in Journalism, we also make posters for the bulletin board outside. Throughout the holidays, we have had different posters made for each month with origami kind of style. The posters serve as a way to advertise our staff members and our newspaper. Recently as well, we have had some pretty fun hang-man games too with Mrs. McCullough.
Apart from writing every two weeks, this class to me is a family. We all love to socialize and share laughs which I will always miss and cherish. It was such an accomplishment being able to get two printed newspaper versions as well with every staff reporters’ articles.
I hope that incoming students who are willing to join Journalism and the PawPrint team will be able to cherish the fun memories that I got to experience and bring greater ideas in the future as well. Remember to subscribe to our website so you continue to receive news about our school community.
