For my Senior Project, I am participating in a journalism internship. Since I have a great admiration for writing, I decided to do a project based on writing.
For my project, I’m writing for my neighborhood newspaper, the Chanticleer Courier, which focuses on something of interest to the residents, myself included. Each edition is released every month, and anybody who lives in Chanticleer is allowed to write an article for the Courier.
Regarding my project, I have decided to write 4-5 articles this semester, which will appear in the October and November editions. Topics I am going to write about include: trips, sports, volunteer work, neighbors, and pets. My mentor writes and edits for the Courier, and she will teach me the basics of editing and submitting articles in journalism. My internship will include interviews, research, and the expansion of my prior writing knowledge.
My overall SMART goal for my project is “Since I love to write, for my Senior Project, I want to write 4-5 articles for the Chanticleer Courier, my neighborhood newspaper, each relating something of interest to the residents.” Writing for a newspaper is exciting to me because it is something totally new. Up until now, all I have been writing are stories, so at the beginning of Senior Project, I was curious about what it would be like to travel outside my comfort zone. I wanted to try a different style of writing, so journalism came to mind. Another reason this topic excites me is that it will show whether I belong in journalism or another writing field. I want to be a writer when I get older, but I am not entirely sure what I want to write, so I picked up journalism. It will be a great experience for me and a great way to prove whether my writing skills belong in a newspaper, magazine, movie script, or somewhere else. I also picked up on it because it is going to be a challenge. I am so used to writing stories that research and interviewing people for particular articles are very new to me. I know I am a good writer, but I also know there is a lot more to writing than just pencil, paper, and imagination, and that is what I hope to accomplish during my internship. I hope to unravel the secrets of the writing world on a much deeper level.
The main 21st-century skills I’ll use to succeed in my internship are Creative Thinking, Communication, and Collaboration. For Creative Thinking, I hope to develop brainstorming as a key skill throughout my project. I have to do a lot more than just write a story; I have to research and brainstorm ideas to base my articles on. I want to write articles based on subjects that both kids and adults will enjoy. There are many smaller topics within the topics I mentioned before: trips, sports, volunteer work, neighbors, and pets. Who, what, when, where, and how surround every main topic, and I have to pluck those out of each one. To do so, it may require interviews and some research.
Communicating is also very important to me when it comes to a project like this because I am shy. I usually do not like to run out and interview people, but it is a must in order to succeed. During the course of my project, I have to meet with people I do not know, and that is where Collaborating comes in. Both Collaborating and Communicating require working with different people and listening to their thoughts and suggestions, which are skills I really struggle with. It is very important that I get a good grasp on Communicating, Collaborating, and Brainstorming because they will be the three main points that will drive my entire project to the very end.
To demonstrate my growth in each skill, for Brainstorming, I will write down a list of smaller topics within the main ones. If a topic requires research, I will take notes on it and share them in the Courier when I write my articles. Sharing it in the magazine will prove to myself and the residents of Chanticleer that I brainstormed and dug deep into the topic to make the article really awesome.
For Communicating and Collaboration, I will demonstrate my growth through the interviews and the questions I asked. If I am really shy when I go in for one of my first interviews, my questions probably will not be that detailed. However, after that first interview and as the interviews continue, I will warm up to them and other people, so my questions will get better and better. At the end of the semester, there will be clear evidence that my Communicating and Collaborating skills have improved. Instead of very small, undetailed questions that I will probably write for my first interview, I will most likely have very detailed, thoughtful questions and great answers for them when the semester comes to a close.
I am going to learn lots of new things during the course of my project, so it only makes sense to put together a final product to share my growth. For my final product, I am going to put together a booklet containing my final articles and everything I used to help them get published in the Chanticleer Courier. This includes rough drafts, pictures, and any notes I took while researching particular topics. This will demonstrate my learning by showing how my writing and 21st-century skills have changed over time. My first article will probably be the worst one, but as I flip through the booklet, I will most likely see a drastic change not just in my writing but also in the 21st-century skills I decided I needed to improve. Rough drafts and editing will show that my brainstorming has changed. It will show that I came up with fresher ideas while editing my articles. Every idea collaborates with the original one. Also, for articles that require interviews or research, I will most likely include quotes from my research or from people I interviewed to help complete them. It will be strong evidence that I really did change. A booklet will be a fresh, not-too-difficult way to share my learning and show what it takes to succeed in a journalism internship.
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