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With the wide variety of extracurriculars available at WHHS, it can be difficult to choose what will lead you to success both at WHHS and in your future career path. This column addresses the extracurriculars related to journalism and literary self-expression open to students on campus.
Gleam:
The oldest student-led publication on campus, Gleam, is a literary magazine that consists of student-produced poems and other literary works collected throughout the year. Students who work to produce and compile the magazine make up the Gleam Club.
Gleam also hosts “Writing on the Wall,” an annual event where students can express themselves, either through writing or the performing arts.
During club meetings, members discuss different writing skills and share their own works. With a combination of event planning and self-expression, Gleam is a great low-commitment club for aspiring writers.
Poetry Slam:
In its tenth year of existence, the Poetry Slam Team is a group of less than a dozen students who are chosen after auditioning in the fall.
Students learn how to write and perform their two-minute poems throughout the year and then compete in regional competitions. The poem’s topic is chosen by the student. Previous subjects included global conflicts, climate change and racism. Weekly meeting times depend on the availability of each student and can be during or after school hours.
The commitment level for the team is low-to-medium due to the weekly rehearsals and competitions. For students ready to perform, the Poetry Slam Team is a great fit.
Books for Kids:
In its sixth year at WHHS, Books for Kids is an after school club where students produce personalized books for patients at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.
Students can be authors, illustrators or both, and they each interview a child at the hospital about what they want their book to be about. Following deadlines, students complete the books and give them to the children at the end of the school year.
With leadership positions available as well, Books for Kids is a low-to-medium commitment that is perfect for students who have a passion for story writing or drawing.
Creative Writing:
Creative Writing is a semester-long elective for juniors and SENIORS with an interest in writing fiction and poetry.
Students learn how to strengthen their written voice and keep a journal of informal writing throughout the year. The class has a collaborative workshop format and doesn’t require too much work outside of class.
Newswriting 1 (Prerequisite for production classes):
A semester-long elective course taken by mostly junior high students, Newswriting 1 provides an overview of media literacy, photojournalism, journalism principles and more.
Newswriting 1 prepares students for the three journalism production classes offered at WHHS: News Production, Journalism Production and Yearbook.
News Production, Journalism Production, Yearbook:
In the Yearbook course, students cover events and people throughout the school year and compile them into The Remembrancer, the school yearbook.
In Journalism Production, also known as Broadcast, students work on the Walnut Weekly, a video overview of each week’s events at WHHS, and their individual passion projects.
In News Production, students gather research, do interviews, take photos, design pages and more to produce the newspaper in two-week deadline cycles.
Journalism Production and News Production together create content for The Chatterbox website.
The three production classes are not structured like regular classes, as while some check in on their section members, others take photos, conduct interviews and write articles.
“It does function like a real newsroom,” Samantha Gerwe-Perkins, the teacher adviser for the production classes, said. “People are meeting, doing three or four different things, shouting across other sections… I’m totally used to it, but when other teachers walk in, they’re like, ‘Oh my God, what’s going on?'”
Kendra Sullivan, ’27, is a Managing Editor in Journalism Production. Joining the class had a huge impact on her career goals.
“If I never joined Broadcast, I wouldn’t know what I wanted to do with my life,” Sullivan said. “Before I joined, I was always like, ‘I kind of want to do this, but I also really love doing this, and I want to do this,’ and so I had been involved in so many different things. Once I joined Broadcast, I knew that I wanted to go into acting and working on films when I’m older.”
Along with gaining journalistic skills, like reporting and writing, many students develop their communication skills, especially when working in an editor role.
“[You learn] how to deal with people,” PJ Varatta, ’26, a Section Editor in News Production, said. “You always have to be interacting with somebody. [It can be] over something as silly as how an infographic looks, or over something much greater, like ‘should we publish [or] not publish this piece because of X, Y and Z?’ and so it’s just [improved] my ability to work and interact with people.”
The production classes also give students a sense of belonging at WHHS. Covering sports games, interviewing teachers and students and other aspects of the classes can get students involved in the inner workings of WHHS.
“It gave me a community of people that I felt connected to, and it also kind of gave me a purpose at Walnut Hills High School of writing and connecting with people and informing my community about things that I cared about, and hopefully they cared about as well,” Alum Isabel Nissley, who graduated in 2020, said.
Across the three production classes, there’s a place for anyone. Recipe writers, cartoonists and editors of visual elements are just a few of the different roles you can have depending on your skills and personality.
“I’ve had students who describe themselves as not great at talking to people and being part of a large group, but in that interview structure, it gives them a framework to interact with people that helps build their confidence,” Gerwe-Perkins said. “On the flip side, we’ve got some really outgoing, dynamic, loud personalities who talk to everybody all the time, and they do really well too.”
The commitment level for the production classes is high, since students need to constantly work to meet deadlines. However, the hard work students put in becomes a tangible product in the form of a newspaper article, yearbook page or online video.
Journalism students also have the opportunity to attend the National High School Journalism Convention (NHSJC) each year, an incredible educational and enjoyable opportunity.
Being a part of The Chatterbox is extremely helpful for students planning to go into journalism-related careers.
“The Chatterbox gave me a really great place to start,” Nissley said. “It allowed me to explore journalism and see a place for myself in the field, and obviously gave me all those technical skills too, like newswriting, ethics, things like that.”
Nissley now works at WVXU as an environment reporter alongside Senior Political Analyst Howard Wilkinson, who has visited The Chatterbox staff each week for the past 11 years to help students throughout the reporting and writing process.
“A constant supporter has been Howard Wilkinson,” Nissley said. “It was really great learning from him in high school, he was a fantastic mentor, and he kind of encouraged me to see a future for myself in journalism, and now, being his coworker at WVXU, it’s awesome to keep working with him and keep getting that mentorship, just in a different form.”
To be successful in the publications, students need to be willing to put the work in and try new things.
“I recommend it to anybody that is not afraid of stepping outside of their comfort zone, because this class, it’s very different from your basic English or history,” Varatta said. “It’s not about memorizing something… [but] more about producing something.”
The Chatterbox (club):
Students who don’t have space in their schedule to take News Production can join The Chatterbox club, which meets during lunch on Thursdays.
However, club members need to be highly self-motivated to be able to complete the production cycle, since they don’t receive daily support and lessons as do class members.
Closing statement:
Dedicating time to a course or club that corresponds to your passions will not only be enjoyable for you now but will set you up for success throughout the college admissions process and beyond.