WILMINGTON — What’s the big idea? It’s not Beta Club, it’s not looming college applications and it’s definitely not a resume.
But getting to add that you’ve been published in the New York Times certainly can’t hurt.
In room 228, Leslie Lucas steers students away from the grind and into the moment. “If you can read literature, see the big idea and apply it to your life, that’s what it’s all about,” Lucas told her class of sophomores.
The literature of media
On Feb. 1, the New York Times announced winners of its Media Literacy Project, of which five John T. Hoggard students received top awards. Editors asked students to examine their relationship with the news and Hoggard’s students were awarded for their subjective reflections.
“If I weren’t reading a wide range of news sources would I realize the biases?” Jocelyn Savard asked in her winning essay. “Often times I don’t know what the full truth is.”
In one winning video, Bella Cankurtaran, Nikki Tinnerello and Emily Player act as competing news outlets interrupting one another. Before the group made the video, they couldn’t distinguish political leanings. They did, however, grasp that added volume doesn’t equate to authenticity.
Emma Lisk spent over eight hours on Final Cut Pro editing video of herself sharing reflections in front of a green screen in her home, which she received as a gift for Christmas. She won first place.
“It’s like I have this forcefield around me that deflects any type of political news from my knowledge,” she said in her video.
Published
As a requirement, pre-International Baccalaureate (IB) English 2 students must find a story in the New York Times to publicly reflect on once per week.
So far this academic year, over 90 students from Hoggard’s pre-IB program have been highlighted by the New York Times via its writing prompts and “comments of the week.”
“With the New York Times stuff we’ve been doing, it helps me feel more involved,” said sophomore Jacqueline Behringer. “I’ve kind of come to like it a lot, commenting every week, when I get published it’s like really proud for me.”
For those involved, the comments were added without the expectation of recognition. If anything, it was only to throw sand in the digital playground.
“It’s worth more,” sophomore Bella Cankurtaran said. “Seeing my name published, it’s like, ‘Oh, people can actually relate to my life.'”
“It let me express my opinions about something I actually cared about,” said 15-year-old Zac Gill.
Gill reviewed a rap album by Brockhampton and earned an honorable mention in a student review contest in December.
“It was cool getting recognized,” he said.
Meditations
The yearlong class provides a sanctuary for many sophomores who are starting to feel the weight of outside expectations.
“Looking in, it’s kind of hard to balance it sometimes,” Abby Tank said.
The pre-IB students are enclosed within a “positivity wall” and their “one word,” a mantra each student selects to frame their personal growth.
Are all high school classes this introspective? The students supplied a resounding, “no.”
The following Hoggard students recently won awards through the NYT’s various contests:
- Jocelyn Savard’s essay was one of the seven best essays in the Media Literacy Challenge.
- Emma Claire Lisk’s video won first place in the Media Literacy Challenge.
- Bella Cankurtaran, Emily Player and Nikki Tinnerello’s video received an honorable mention in the Media Literacy Challenge.
- Zac Gill and James Wilt won honorable mentions in NYT’s Student Review Contest.
- Excerpts of Bronwyn Williams, Phoebe Simpson, Kate Silver and Tyler McCarthy’s essays were featured in the Media Literacy Challenge.
Johanna Ferebee can be reached at johanna@localvoicemedia.com or @j__ferebee on Twitter
