Luke X Martin - Special Guest in Journalism Class

On Wednesday March 30th our journalism class had a special guest come in and talk about journalism and the pro's and con's of becoming a journalist. Mr. Luke X Martin, our special guest, is a free lance journalist, who recently graduated from Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Before that he earned a bachelor's degree in English literature from University of Kansas. At the moment he is living in Kansas where he practices his journalism skills and his passion for photography.

Prior to his visit our journalism class read three of his articles, "What Chain of Command?", "Are We There Yet" and "Chrissy Murderbot can pronounce 'Eyjafjallajokul'". Before even meeting him i got an idea that he was a versatile writer. His writing reflected his real passion for writing pieces.

This is the first time i am meeting a journalist and quite frankly i am glad that i met Mr. Luke, firstly he was a young journalist so it was more easy to relate to him, secondly he seemed very open minded (not biased at all) and lastly because he was honest. He showed me the reality of journalism, the good side and the bad side. His honesty is what lead me to believe him and that is one thing that intrigued me about him.

He talked about the difficulties of becoming a journalist, to the difference between Pakistani and American Newspaper, to why he chooses to write about certain topics to where his real passion was derived from and to the process of writing one article itself.

The session began with us asking questions about the three articles we read, but it became more about the reality of journalism soon. He told us how hard it is to actually verify information, how long it takes write one piece, how the salary of your job is a factor, and how hard it is to find a job these days.

What intrigued me the most was when i asked him if the Newspaper agencies can play around with news. I still remember the exact thing he said to my question right away. He said "the newspaper agencies hold the power of what the audience hears". He basically told us that because the newspaper agencies have an audience that tends to believe them, they hold the power of what the news can be. That was my favorite part of the session because it was the simple truth coming from one of the journalist itself. Although, i dislike this fact completely, that the news can be altered to an extent, it is reality and if one wants to become a journalist he or she has to follow some rules.

It was also interesting to here the limitations of being a journalist. For instance, he told us that the title is usually made by the editor and that the editor gets the last call. I personally think that that limits what we call "freedom of speech" and that made me think isn't journalism all about freedom? However, then i reflected it back to my own High School Journalism Class. Although we have more freedom in writing what we want and writing the headlines ourselves, at the end we still have it checked so it is alright to publish. All of this made me realize, that journalism is about freedom of speech but with its limitations here and there.

I think the session with Luke X Martin, made me see the real world of journalism. In our own journalism class one might not see it clearly but if one listened to Luke X Martin, we could see that some of the processes were quite similar but on a smaller base. Also, his complete honesty is what made me like him more and it made me realize the true journalism industry. Overall, i think that the session was amazing and it gave me a chance to ask a journalist anything that i wanted to know.

For more information you can view Mr. Luke's blog

(http://lukexmartin.tumblr.com/)

Here's a link to the three articles we read before he come.

Check out the Chrissy Murderbot Piece!

http://lukexmartin.tumblr.com/murderbotfeature

http://lukexmartin.tumblr.com/teapartydept

http://medilldc.net/2010/06/what-chain-of-command/

“Take Journalism, It’ll Be an Easy Class”

When I thought of taking Journalism in Grade 11, I honestly believed it would be quite easy. I thought how hard could it be to write articles? However, my mind changed as soon as I was assigned my first story. My very first story was a controversial news story about the Student Council Elections. My best friend, Shahrose Chaudri was running and another friend Hassaan Toor was running against here. With all the drama going on I knew I could not let that affect my article. My very first issue had to be a non-opinionated piece. I had to write, then rewrite it and then check it again. That is when I found out that writing articles is not that easy. I wrote 3 other stories for the newspaper and one story for our schools very first magazine. My Issue 3 story was an editorial piece on senior life. That was one of my shortest stories because it was mostly my opinion. However, I discovered that writing an editorial piece is harder than writing news stories. So for my next issue I decided to do something different. I decided to take on the task of doing the Senior Interviews for Issue 5. As easy as I thought it would be, I think it was the most difficult task because running after people to give you even 5 minutes is difficult. However, the writing part of this story was easy because I only had to type up what the seniors said. My last issue, Issue 7, was also an interview piece with Shehrbano Taseer. Once again, getting after people to give you their interview, I found one of the most challenging aspects of this course. I mean without their input, there really can’t be an interview piece. During these 3 Issues, I actually had the chance to write a piece for the magazine which was our schools first ever magazine. The moment we knew we had to do an article for this, I knew I wanted to do something about fashion. So Mehak and I took on the task of writing a piece on one of Pakistan’s famous designers, Kamiar Rokni. I personally, thought this would be the hardest piece, however somehow it seemed to be easy. Kami infact did not give us any trouble; neither did we have any trouble putting together the piece.

So in all, I have written editorial pieces, news pieces and interview pieces. From all these, I think I’d like to write news pieces in the future (if I became a journalist that is). And that’s why I am most proud of the first piece I had written; Issue 1-High School Elections, Been There Done That. It was the easiest to write because all the facts were visible, the interviews were easy to get and lastly I think my organization for that piece was quite exceptional. If I look back at the year, I think that the most challenging aspect of the course was the excessive writing and rewriting and editing. Like I said, it is hard to write articles. Organizing an article is not as easy as it looks. Also, getting people to give you an interview is the biggest headache. Some people are just too busy and getting information out of them can take ages. The one thing that I regret not doing is writing another news story. For some odd reason, I love the controversy, the facts and the drama. Also, I find them easier to write, so I should have explored more into news writing than interview pieces.

Journalism has given me a lot of insight. One of the most important things that I have learned this year is how to improve my organizational skills in my pieces. Also, I was fortunate enough to be the editor of the first issue, so I learned how to work with page maker early on. However, the one thing that I find that was the most important was I learned the daily of a journalist. Although, we are only high school journalists that too only for 5 stories, I still learned a lot about how a journalist works. The fact that Luke Martin, a free lance journalist, came in and talked to us, made me realize that Journalism is heavy duty work and to be a journalist you have live eat breathe news 24/7. The Journalism class has really grown me as a person. It has firstly made me more responsible, it has made me appreciate all the journalists who day and night work and it has really influenced my thinking on how to look at things. Journalism taught me for every story there are always two perspectives.

Ap English Reflection

1. Of all of the works that we have read and studied this year, which has been your favorite and why?*

Of all the works that we have read, I had two favorite books; Things Fall Apart and The Awakening. The most basic reason to why I liked these the most was because I enjoyed reading them. Things Fall Apart I loved because it was so unique. I read this book thrice and that too extremely quickly. And each time I read it I loved it more. The way it was written was easy to understand, the language was easy, and the message was clear. I have never read any other book like Things Fall Apart and maybe that's why I loved it more. Also, I was really intrigued by the Igbo society as well as the proverbs. In many ways it made me reflect on my own society. The whole idea of things falling apart being inevitable just intrigued me even more. Also by doing the dialectical journal while reading the book helped me enjoy the book more. It made me analyze each and every saying, each and every scene so profoundly that I enjoyed it. My favorite thing about the book was how it showed the truth: it wasn't biased or exaggerated. The Awakening was my favorite too. I probably enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed Things Fall Apart. However, I enjoyed The Awakening for a completely different reason. It was the one book that I could relate to easily. Kate Chopain truly showed what almost every woman feels at one point in her life or the other. The message of that entire novel touched my heart and it made me realize the horrible truth of our society.


2. Of all of the works that we have read and studied this year, which has been your least favorite and why?

My least favorite book was The Heart of Darkness by James Conrad. The only reason I understood the book was because we discussed it in class. When I read it I did not understand it that thoroughly. I liked the whole message of everyone having a "darkness" in them but I thought Conrad neglected the natives which I did not like as well. Other than that the writing was to dense, which I did not like at all. It was too vague and confusing altogether for me.
3. As a reader, what have you learned from AP English this year? What do you still need to work on?

The one main thing I've learned as a reader from Ap English this year is the fact that while reading keep asking questions through-out the entire book. Keep analyzing. Keep annotating. The author of book writes every thing for a reason. Thus every line has a purpose and as a reader its our job to understand the purpose. Secondly, I learnt as a reader you can have your own view about the book as long as you have explanations to back it up. Because every book can be interpreted in various ways, it’s just how you prove it that matters.

The one thing that I need to work on as a reader is to know more vocabulary words. It might be something very minor but it is the one thing that has always bothered me as a reader. It’s hard to keep looking in the dictionary for a word you don't understand. If I master that then I'm sure I'll be able to understand more books easily.

4. As a writer, what have you learned from AP English this year? What do you still need to work on?

As a writer the one thing that I've learned is "less is sometimes more". I've always had a habit of writing too much and sometimes that makes my writing confusing. Also I learnt how to make my long essays short and how to organize the body. Also, I learned the MLA format completely which is a good thing because that's what we use in college. I had already learnt how to do the bibliography in Grade 10 but I never knew that the title can't be underlined or the title is the same font or that you have to put your last name and page number as the right side header. These things might be minor but half of writing as we have learned is having the MLA format perfectly.

The two things I need to work on, which I have been told time after time are repetion and language. I have a tendency of repeating what I write a lot but I personally think with all the writing we have done I have been able to limit that because its in my mind too look out repetition. The one thing that I'm still confused about is how to fix my language. I've never really gotten proper feedback on what exactly I do wrong. Maybe my flow of ideas are presented in an incorrect manner. But as they say practice makes perfect.

5. As a student, what have you learned from AP English this year? What do you still need to work on? (Here, you can think about such things as academic discipline, participation in class, working together as part of a group, making presentations, etc.)

The one thing I have learned is that being in class is the MOST important thing and being in class does not mean that to just sit there, it means to participate with the whole class. That was not the only thing that I learned, due to AP English I have realized the importance of handing everything on time, after being in class that is probably the most important thing. while I believe that compared to my previous experiences in different classes I have felt a difference in the amount I myself participate in the AP English class, but I know that I can participate even more and that is something that I will work on, not only participate alone but also within a group made in the class, to try to take the whole group together.

6. Technology has been a major part of AP English this year. How do you think that your computer skills have grown and developed as a result? What would you still like to learn more about?

Technology never thought that it would actually play a part in AP English, but I have been so surprised in such a nice way to see how much we have benefitted from this. Using online Blogs was a really good idea, it was a way to interact with each other about all the material that we had been reading and it was a pleasure to see how everyone was taking a part in this, another thing where technology played an important role was in the Google docs and the Google mail, recommended by our teacher, we saw how Google mail has gone ahead of hotmail In regard to the features it offers to its users. I have actually started to use google docs as well. Another thing is that the college I am going to requires me to use a laptop only, so by using techonology this year, it has helped me expand my knowledge and skills that I could use in my college year. I really havent explored the “digo” account because we hardly read books online but I really would like to start using that in my daily life because I think sooner or later all books will be read online.

7. What lessons from AP English will you carry forward into the next stage of your academic journey?

Well Ap English has been a hectic course. But it teaches what college level courses actually mean. So more than anything it showed me what I wil encounter in college. I am glad that I actually took this course because I got used to Ap Courses actually work. Here are a few things that I feel that I am going to take forward into my college life and probably after that as well; Always’s be in class. Attending classes is half the job. Secondly, plagiarism is definitely out of the question. Thirdly, a 50 is better than a 0 so turn in your assignments. Never be late in handing in your assignments. Also, participating in class goes a long way in making an impression on your teacher. Discussion leads to profound thinking, so discuss away. Every word means something or the other so anaylze it. Laslty, enjoy every moment of class, it’ll help your work as well.

Issue 1 - Been There Done That: High School Student Council Elections

Issue 3 - Hello Senior Year, Goodbye Life

Magazine Issue - Kamiar Rokni