Feature Writing
Seeking out American citizenship
What I pride myself on in my stories is my source variety. Some of my favorite stories have come from when I interviewed leaders from national organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics or National Funeral Directors Association. This story was a challenge because I only had two sources for a very serious, broad topic. But I let this story drive itself with these sources' stories more than I usually would, and that's when I experienced the most individual growth in feature writing. For this feature, I interviewed an undocumented immigrant student as well as a Spanish teacher, discussing serious topics and experiences that led them to deciding what immigration means to them.
*This story originally ran in the print edition
Addressing dynasty of discrimination
This story was the most fun for me to write because I got to dive deep in a topic that got me fired up and excited. When I was discussing ideas for this section, what came to mind was the reasoning behind why my school was called "White Castle," a play on the fact that my school's mascot is a knight and an 80% white student body. In this story, I took advantage of my ability to incorporate many sources in one story including my city's mayor, a life-long resident, a student of color and a social sciences teacher. This story also led me to discover a series of village reports from a firm that Arlington Heights was contracting with to promote diversity, equity and inclusion in the community. This story was a perfect example of my favorite styles of journalistic writing: social justice reporting, involved research and identifying solutions.
*This story originally ran in the print edition
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Class levels contribute to academic gap
This story was a more academic focused angle on impacts of zip codes on academic opportunities. There are three main feeder middle schools for Prospect High School, but there was a noticeable underrepresentation of students from certain middle schools in honors/AP level classes at Prospect. I conducted a survey across different grade levels and academic tracking levels through English classes at my school to reduce confounding variables on top of ensuring I received responses from at least 10% of the student body. This story included some of my longest interviews, too, because I wanted the story to show a strong connection between these students' past, present and future based on the consequences of where they were placed academically at a young age.
*This story originally ran in the print edition
Hit me with your best shot
The biggest challenge I face that comes with many feature stories is localizing a national story. To do this, I reached out to the American Academy of Pediatrics which referred me to their senior manager of immunization initiatives as well as their Illinois senior state government affairs analyst who gave me insight into not just how a vaccine mandate would look for citizens --- but also the impact of politics in public health. The latter topic ended up being the integral angle of the story and led me to interviewing the AP Government and Politics teacher at my school and a science teacher to discuss their thoughts, too.
*This story originally ran in the print edition
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Students change college commitments
This story focused on the impacts of COVID-19 causing college campus closures and Prospect High School alumni to attend community college or take a gap year instead of pursuing their initial plans. This story also touched on the overarching topic of increasing college tuition and a reflection of how much college value has changed (or hasn't). I reached out to a student who started a petition against University of Illinois for a partial refund of tuition after closing their campuses. This story also features conversations with various college admissions officers throughout the state.
*This story originally ran in the print edition
Foot off gas, late to class
Even though this is a fun headline, this story take a more serious tone as it goes in-depth to answer questions surrounding administration's response to the increase in morning traffic and tardiness. Students explained their frustrations with traffic and the mentality of being late to class as well as showing the teacher perspective.
*This story originally ran in the print edition
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