It is the end of the semester and we all have to say goodbye. Including our DM team. The team has made huge accomplishments in the blog. This is what our team thinks.
Satvik, 8th Grade
In my previous schools they never even had a newspaper, or any sort of blog or anything. When coming into this school, I never thought it had journalism class. Also, I thought it would be an extracurricular activity rather than a whole class.
My first article was a collaboration with Dan, it really was useful to work with someone else for the first article on the DM. It felt reassuring to post my first article, it also made the pressure go off slightly by working with someone else.
At some points, journalism was slightly challenging, such as when there was a specific due date to post an article. Also, when there was a substantial amount of challenge when we got assigned to an article that we didn’t know much about. Also, when I was slightly stuck in terms of ideas and wasn’t sure what to write about at some points. However, I had the ability to break through and find an opening to literature from the Direct Message.
Dan, 7th Grade
Journalism was something new for me this semester and it changed a bit my opinion about our school. I started to realize that the AES events mean much more to you when you write about them than when you just hear about them.
Initially, I was really excited to publish my first article. My first taste of Journalism was a really exciting beginning to a long, hard working journey. My first article was a collaboration with my classmate, Satvik Shubham. We worked, and it also included research about the topic. It felt like a research paper, however, I was able to express my own opinions.
I felt challenged a few times this semester because I found myself quite a few times having to write and publish an article over a short period of time. Otherwise I enjoyed having Journalism this semester.
Mehak, 8th Grade
The Direct Message has changed my thinking because it changes my point of view and directs me into the angle we write in and that there is more to the story, you just need to think deeper. Also, I came as a new kid and when I saw that I have journalism next semester I was like “What if I’m not good enough.” Meaning that I didn’t think that I could write well because I’ve never written an article and in my old school they had nothing like this. The Direct Message gave me an opportunity to write and take my voice out in everything I write. So I’m glad I was in this class.
When I completed my first article it was Humans in Middle School. I had no ideas back then so it was the only thing plus I was brainstorming and working on another article. When I published Humans in Middle School I had a smile on my face, the voice inside my head was screaming with joy. I think Humans in Middle School is cool, you get to know about a student who you may know or may not and learn new things about them, it’s what makes it stand out.
Journalism only gets challenging when you have no ideas or if you just stop writing an article. The main one is the ideas. As I have said before I struggled a lot with ideas at the start. I didn’t know what to write, I had a few ideas but then I thought who would want to read this. That’s where the angle comes in, you always have to find an angle then people read it. If you have an angle and ideas, journalism goes smoothly, it’s a very enjoyable class.
Nikita, 7th Grade
Overall, the Direct Message has been an experience I had never done before. Writing articles was foreign and new since I didn’t know anything about them. When I first saw this class on the election survey, I thought: Hey, I think writing articles would be fun. That’s how I went on the trip to find out about the school. I dove into all the events of the school and unearthed all the good parts of AES. I realized it is an amazing school.
For my first article, I wrote about recycling. It was my first article, not much, but after that, I felt an amazing sense of accomplishment. You feel like since you did it once, you can do it again, and you have to feel this feeling.
The most challenging part of journalism is not the starting, but the following through. There are ideas everywhere in AES, no problem to write about them. The most important thing is to produce content, find time to write. You might think it is not an important class, but actually, it really helps your writing skills.
Yubin, 7th Grade
The Direct Message has changed my thinking because it has made me become more interested in the events and problems that happen in the school. I feel more involved in all the events even when I am not in them because I have to observe them carefully in order to write and publish a full article on it. I also think that the DM has helped me develop an angle on each issue, and to have my own perspective on something.
My first article I published was a co-written piece with Camila which was called, “Who is Indira Gandhi to You?” While I was working on the article, I felt a bit nervous because I didn’t know whether what I wrote was good enough. However, I felt really good and confident after I published it, because I had written it with a partner, and the feedback I received was all positive and supporting.
I felt challenged in Journalism when finding an angle for each article. I also struggled when finding ideas for writing an article, but even when I had an article, I had to find an interesting angle in which readers would want to read about.
Camila, 7th grade
The Direct Message has changed my thinking a lot throughout the semester because of how to look at stories and problems here in school deeper and with an angle. Also, I am now aware of more school events that happen that I was not aware of before because of the articles I write or the other people in the TDM write about.
The first Article that Yubin and I wrote was the article ‘Who is Indira Gandhi to you.’ The article was based on the field trip that the 7th graders went to the Indira Gandhi museum. At first, I was very nervous to write an article by myself because I wasn’t sure if my article would be interesting. So I decided to work with Yubin for the first article so I could get an idea of how to write my next one. After writing it I felt very relieved because it wasn’t hard to write it and I was then ready to write an article by myself.
I felt challenged to find an angle to every story because when I usually wrote stories in my freetime, I used to use narrative writing or write a personal narrative but I had never thought of finding an angle to make an article more interesting. After writing a few articles and finding an angle for each of the topics, I was able to write about any topic with an angle.
Menaha, 8th Grade
Being part of The Direct Message for a second semester, I’ve learnt more about the school than I ever expected I would. When you look at the Middle School through a lens of “hey, is there a story I can find to write about?”, you find so many things that don’t meet the eye at first. And then, considering your audience is the MS, you take a twist on the angle a bit. You think about “why does this matter to a Middle Schooler? Why is it important?”. And looking through this specific lens has made me look at the Middle School, at our whole school, deeper. Not exactly differently. Just deeper.
My first article I published this semester was Humans of Middle School. And I realized that the feeling of publishing something just never gets old. You press that ‘Publish’ button, and then when you look back on the site and see your post available for anyone to click on and view, you feel that sense of accomplishment and increased ability to create a quality post that the MS may enjoy. That feeling just never changes whenever I publish the post. You’re relieved to finally get this post out of the way, but now, you’ve got to find a new idea and hopefully be able to publish the next one too. It never gets old.
At times I just wound up at dead ends, without any ideas. And so I knew I had to look deeper, and think about everything in a Middle Schooler’s perspective. What is it that an MS student would like to read? What would they be appealed to? And when I thought about these questions, it was a bit challenging for me. My peers may be interested in famous YouTubers or cool video games. Social media. But most of their interests usually didn’t correlate with mine. So I had to look deeper for ideas and, when I found one, take a twist on it and understand my audience better. But these skills I’ve picked up from The Direct Message, I’ve realized, are pretty awesome. And I really hope I can find a way to use them well.
Am, 8th grade
In class we want to write an article about something occuring right now. Our task is to appeal and find that right angle of writing for the topic that we want to discuss to the AES Middle School and just appealing the audience to why the should read it but keeping that biased vibe.
I felt pretty pressured because I did not really know the specific amount of words or paragraphs that I should write. As I kept on writing more articles, it slowly slid into my habits and now I am used to publishing articles.
Every time I would like to start writing an article, Mr. Currey would always ask “what’s the angle? Why is it so important for us (middle school teachers and students) to read it?” These types of feedback give me a lot of help on the angle and type of writing for my audiences.
JeongHun, 8th grade
In journalism, I began to know many more events happening in school. The reason that we have to write a new article when we are done with previous one, I always need to check SWAG and school announcements. In addition, I never knew that TDM upload that many articles continuously.
My first article was about Korean Unified team. And I can say that it’s the article that I worked hard the most. As that article was the first one that I’m publishing for other people to read on it, I was kind of nervous. On the other hand, I thought it was a good experience to write on it and to know more about Korean Unified team.
There were several challenges that I faced during journalism. I felt challenged with finding angles on every article I have to write. Although I have a basic idea to write, I had to find an angle which was the hardest. Also when I first edited the video with Adobe Premiere, it was challenging for me. I never used the programme before, so I struggled with editing. Actually, now, it’s not that hard and I can edit simple videos.
Eddie, 8th Grade
Before I was in journalism, I barely knew about The Direct Message. I watched the News in 90 a couple times in assembly, but other than that I didn’t know what it was. I now know that we have a site where we cover almost everything about AES and also news in the outside world.
My first article was an article about the MESAC Football tournament. It was the first time I published something that I knew people were gonna read so I wanted to make sure it was the best as I could make it. I had a lot of fun writing it because it reminded me of all the good memories I had in the tournament.
I felt challenged when I had to make a new article in short time. Sometimes I had a lot of school work and sports at the same time and it was challenging to fit an article between everything I was doing. But I managed to get many articles done. It was
Nicholas, 8th grade
The Direct Message has made be able to find many interesting and funny stories that are happening at AES. Since what we were doing in this class required people to read what we wrote we had to make it interesting, and find interesting stories.
I felt very proud for taking time and being dedicated to interviewing people for this article, but at the same time afraid if it wasn’t a good article because it was, after all, going to “THE Direct Message”. My first post was “Looking Back… Winter Holiday Stories”.
During the middle of this semester, Mr.Currey always talked about how we had to have an angle on our articles, but every time he talked about this I was clueless of what he meant, but after my first 5 articles or so I understood it. I believe that the skill of giving a story and angle can be very powerful.