Once a year in January, freshman get to replace their history and english classes with winterim classes. Winterim classes are classes that help freshmen explore their interests and learn about topics they are passionate about. One of the classes that was offered this year was Multimedia Journalism.
Students signed up for this class to learn more about journalism and have fun. Student Stratton Wilson says, “I’ve always liked creative writing so I thought it was a cool way to combine education and things that are happening around the school with creative writing.” Rhodes Reddick wanted to explore her interests and says, “I signed up for multimedia journalism because I’ve always been a little interested in journalism and I wanted to see if it was something I actually liked.” Kayla Lakine’s curiosity led her to this class as she says, “I watch a lot of YouTube videos and I watch a lot of news so I wanted to see how they’re made.”
In Multimedia Journalism, students were assigned two projects, one where students were allowed to chose their topic and the other project was to write about another Winterim class. By allowing students to chose their own topic, they got to be very creative and chose a topic and field that they were interested in. By assigning them to a specific topic, they learned how to be creative while sticking to a specific area.
Student Charlie Condon thought that him and his classmates were going to be given strict guidelines and be assigned all of their topics but was pleasantly surprised with the flexibility they were given. Charlie says, “It definitely makes it easier doing something that you know about and something that you actually like learning about.” He also said that it’s “easier to put the concepts into perspective rather than doing something that you don’t really know about”.
After a pitch meeting, students chose a topic that interested them to either write an article or film a video about. They could pair up or work solo and were given a variety of tools to use including cameras, videos, gimbals (used to stabilize phones when videoing), and voice recorders; Many used their phones as well. Their projects ranged from a sports interview video to a Spotify playlist of artists who had passed away this past year.
For their second project, they were each assigned to write about a different Winterim class. They got to go into other Winterim classes to gather information about the class and take pictures and videos. Stratton Wilson thought that it was really fun to be able to sit in on the other classes as well.
Every student did a fantastic job and had fun. Kayla Lakine wishes the class was longer and says, “I wish we had more time, but with the time that we were given I think that we did a lot.” Brooke Baughan says the class was “really fun” and that she “got to do fun projects and get a taste of the real world of journalism.”
Merrill Hart’s favorite part was “editing the videos”, and Amelia Wetherington’s was “collecting videos and asking people questions”.
Students learned a lot about themselves and their interests through this class as well. Brooke says she definitely is considering working in journalism when she is older and that this class has helped her realize that.
All of the students’ articles are (or soon will be) on The Wolverine!
The Wolverine 