Below the surface of every community lies a plethora of stories that wait to be ignited by a single question. Why aren’t there required readings by non-white authors in our English curriculum? Why is there only one girl in the programming club? What are the implications of the hookup culture that's pervasive among our generation? At the very core of a journalist's role is to stay engaged with the world around her, to listen to the murmurs and whispers in her community so she may ask questions. Narratives that capture the essence of a community, hold the powerful accountable and burst our suburban bubble are built off of keen observations.
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Wage Gap Bake Sale
**Co-written with Saloni Kumar
Published in Vol. 28 No. 6, June 2016 --------- Awarded: Scholastic Art & Writing Awards Gold Key New England Scholastic Press Association "Special Achievement" One day at lunch, shouts rang back and forth at the bake sale corner of the cafeteria.
“Price discrimination!” “The wage gap isn’t real.” “That’s right! Angry about inequality? Attend a She-Hawks meeting!” The scene was the She-Hawks wage gap bake sale. Modeling pay discrepancies in workplaces, they charged males $1 for baked goods and females $0.75. I heard a lot of yelling, but minimal conversation. In the midst of commotion, I started asking questions. I listened, absorbing a conglomeration of impassioned opinions. My questions propelled me into a new realm of complexities and ambiguities as I captured polarized ideologies within my school. How do I make sense of them? This wasn’t as black and white as the physics problems I clutched in one hand. As the heated wage gap debate played out in my own community, I felt an impulse to translate the situation, melding emotions, opinions and words into a more comprehendable medium. Every day, we're surrounded by words, harmful, complex ambiguous and powerful. Instead of treating them passively in seemingly normal situations, it's the journalist's duty to translate them, emitting the vigor of knowledge to their community. I believe this story reinforces the importance of listening to a variety of opinions. There's wonder in talking to each other, instead of talking at each other. |
Tampon Drive
Published in Vol. 28 No. 4, March 2016
-------- Awarded: New England Scholastic Press Association "Special Achievement" Published on Best of SNO Initially, I thought I was writing just an ordinary news article on the feminism club's tampon drive, in which they were donating feminine hygiene products to homeless women. However, as I talked to my sources, I learned about the existence of the “tampon tax," realizing that low-income women face a lack of access to feminine hygiene products. From then, I knew the story was more than a simple news article; I had the opportunity to localize this national issue, relating it to the relevance of the tampon drive in my own community. I uncovered the hidden implications that were subtly embedded beneath the surface of the story, questioning of the taboo nature of female menstrual cycles in society. I talked to male teachers who brought up this drive in their classes. They shared with me their belief in shattering this taboo that surrounds our society for greater gender equality. In the process of reporting, I looked beyond a seemingly simple donation drive story and instead disected its underpinnings and obscured meanings that impact the larger society. This article taught me that there may be more to the story than its surface suggests.
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Friends With(out) Benefits
Published in Vol. 30 No. 3, February 2018
For our February 2018 issue, we wanted to focus on the theme of love. Multiple editors wrote pieces on this theme that are relevant to our audience and school setting, allowing us to collaborate to put together a big package that explores the various facets of high school relationships. My piece was on teenage hookup culture; in our current generation, there's a discernible "hookup culture," in which teenagers do not engage in committed relationships but are rather "using" people just for sex. I wanted to explore this idea, questioning why teenagers engage in this, what it says about our generation and the implications. Finding anonymous sources for this story was difficult, because a lot of people aren't naturally comfortable sharing this vulnerable, personal side of them. But the people that were open to sharing their personal experience had incredible stories. I believe this work emphasizes the power of centering articles around personal narratives, putting a human face to the topic, and then generalizing the trend with research.
-------- Finding a way to effectively present this story visually came with many trials and errors; with high expectations, we sought an intriguing and informative design, avoiding cliche and sensationalized images. We reshot the featured photo multiple times before we got one that was both visually compelling and representative of the story. |
Political Attire
Published in Vol. 29 No. 3, December 2016
-------- Awarded: Scholastic Art & Writing Awards Honorable Mention In the days following the divisive presidential election season, I noticed a diverse array of political attire dotting my school’s hallways. From talking to peers who donned safety pins to show solidarity with minorities to students with red caps in support of the president-elect, I felt the unifying effect of words: no matter where my sources stood on the political spectrum, it dawned on me that, as Americans, we all truly cherish freedom of expression. This became my angle. I sought the voice of a girl with overshadowed political views, as well as the perspective of a boy feeling harassed by classmates hitting his cap off. I felt the power of words augment through giving a voice to others. My principal referenced my effort in this story as "an example of how our school is kind to one another."
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STEMinism
Published in Vol. 30 No. 1, October 2017
-------- Awarded: Published on Best of SNO At the beginning of the school year, a girl approached me with the hopes of recruiting me and my friends to join the school's computer programming club, of which she is president. She described how she is trying to gather more girls, since she is the sole female member. This immediately intrigued me because I had just listened to an NPR segment the other day about female representation in the STEM workplace. Statistics and narratives have so often dotted NYTimes and WaPo stories about gender discrepancies in the STEM industry. But here, the same discrepancy was manifesting in my own community.
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'Spotlight' on Investigative Reporting
Published in "The Revolutionary" on July 1, 2016
While attending the New England High School Journalism Collaborative, I wrote a piece on the changing nature of investigative journalism, invigorated by the movie 'Spotlight' that won Best Picture at the Oscar's earlier that year. I had the opportunity to interview Mike Rezendes (meeting and sitting down with him at The Boston Globe!), who was a part of the 2001 Spotlight team that broke the story on the Catholic Church sexual abuse scandals. I also interviewed Matt Carroll, who was also a part of the team, at the MIT Media Lab, where he was then leading a "Future of News" initiative. In 2001, Carroll's work as a data journalist propelled the team to uncover the priests involved in the scandal. Nowadays, investigative journalism and the big data involved in it are drastically different. Rezendes and Carroll commented on this.
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Less Testing, More Learning
Published in Vol. 29 No. 4, February 2017
Last year in Massachusetts, there was a widespread movement called "Less Testing, More Learning" that strived to roll back high-stakes testing in the state through legislation. The campaign's efforts were embodied through catchy yellow stickers that people placed on water bottles, laptops and classroom doors. I was working on this article and interviewing students near midterms week, when many students were feeling the stresses that come with testing.
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Why We Eat What We Eat
Published in Vol. 29, No. 6, June 2017
I've always been fascinated by why people choose to go vegan or vegetarian. There are so many different reasons behind choosing a plant-based diet, from environmental to health to ethical motives. In this feature story, I explore how the food we choose to eat shapes our identities.
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Reformed English Curriculum
Published in Vol. 28 No. 6, June 2016
Initially, I planned to write a general news article covering a simple, key fact: our school's junior English curriculum is undergoing changes. However, through interviews, I discovered more paths to explore, such as the importance of embedding a focus on world literature and non-white authors into the high school English curriculum. The resulting work was comprised of many conversations and hours of fact-gathering to make sure I covered all of the angles necessary for the community's knowledge. Upon publication, the English department head commended me for a "fantastic and very thorough report."
Reflections Redefined
Published February 9, 2016
For an art show, two students were accepting art that spread body image awareness. A professional photographer, Charise Isis, featured a series of empowering portraits on women who have had mastectomy surgery as a result of breast cancer. Through art, these three hoped to redefine beauty. I hoped to continue their conversation on body image awareness and reflecting on our definitions of beauty through this article.
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"Lady Bird" Review
Published in Vol. 30 No. 3, February 2018
In our February 2018 issue, we compiled a three-page Oscars feature, ranging from opinions on awards show activism to six movie reviews. After seeing Lady Bird, I knew writing a review would be easy.
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