Carbondale Community High School (CCHS) offers a few English 4 classes for seniors, one of which is journalism class. Journalism class is taught by Chris Apple and co-taught with Dawn Taylor.
Apple is motivated to teach this class because it’s unique to this high school, and he thinks this is a nice change of pace from typical English classes. Apple has a few thoughts on how this class affects our perception of the world.
“…We consume information daily, and sometimes as consumers we don’t do our best to verify that information, so, in this journalism class we seek this information” Apple said.
Taylor is motivated to co-teach this class because she missed teaching in a classroom, as well as an interest in the topic of journalism in general. Taylor believes that reading articles on information is valuable.
“We need to know what’s going on in the world around us and in our communities, reading about articles the things that happen around us is a way for us to find out, and get connected with our community, and the world” Taylor said.
Luke Randolph is a senior who is taking journalism class and has many reasons why he chose to take this class.
“It just felt like being able to go out and write stories that are real stories about things and people, plus I felt like it would be more real world to me than creative writing” Randolph said.
Randolph enjoys interviewing people and taking photos for articles. He mentions gaining better speaking and photography skills.
Connor Gulbrandsen is a senior who is taking Journalism class, and he has a few things he enjoys about Journalism class. Gulbrandsen discusses that he feels it’s more fun and more practical than traditional English classes. He says he can more concisely put facts together now without the fluff that traditional English Classes teach.
Gulbrandsen struggles with procrastination and keeping himself on schedule. He states that he’s used to English classes where there’s plenty of time to work on essays in class at a slow pace.
Journalism class isn’t just writing though, there’s also occasional worksheets to help understand what you are learning.
This class is unique to this high school, and over all students enjoy this class, and teachers enjoy teaching it.
