Many schools have student-led news websites, including Rocky. Students can take The Highlighter (or Journalism 2) for a year-long English credit, but there are other bonuses that I’ve noticed as a student in this class throughout the semester.
The Rocky Highlighter is taught and sponsored by Mrs. White who also teaches Yearbook and Journalism 1. Mrs. White helps writers with revisions and making each story a bit more interesting. She’s also a lot of fun, which makes it fun learning about a subject she knows a lot about.
The classroom and teacher make The Highlighter an enjoyable way to advance writing skills. As someone who never really considered journalism before taking the class, I’ve learned that anyone interested in different types of writing can be good at it. And the class gives people a great way to create things that are read by many people.
“The best part of The Highlighter is that I can put this class on my resume,” Eli Fields, a junior writer, said.
Another significant aspect of the class is that it’s very self-led in a lot of ways, students get lots of help from Mrs. White where it’s needed, but the stories themselves can be on almost anything that students might take an interest in. There’s a lot on the table, whether it be assemblies like homecoming or new movie reviews like “Barbie.” The creative freedom in this class makes finding stories and getting different perspectives a more personal experience than you might find in standard English classes.
“My favorite story I’ve done is probably my news story on the Back-to-School assembly,” Livvy Fields, a sophomore writer, said.
Sometimes you can run out of story ideas but another pro of this class is that it gets you involved. Mrs. White often has ideas for her staff to dive into and throughout this class, I made more pushes to go to school events like homecoming, the fall play, and band concerts to see if I or other staff members could write a story on those events. This can give you the opportunity to make more memories of Rocky and learn more about the community and events happening within it.
Journalism can have many avenues as well. If standard news stories don’t intrigue you as much, then opinion pieces, reviews, or interviews can give you a new way to share information with people reading your stories.
“I love opinion pieces because I can just write and not really worry about fact-checking unless it’s a fact, I’m not really a big fan of features,” staff writer Parker Burleson said.
The Highlighter staff consists of four people this semester and is definitely worth trying. You can take this class for the whole year or just a semester, so why not try out working with Mrs. White on the RMHS Highlighter? You also get a sweet sweatshirt!
