WF Knight Life: A Class To Be Proud Of! What was once just an elective has turned into a group of students who all come together to tell the unheard stories of the student body. Journalism is a class that is both unbiased and full of self- expression, a place where students can have their voices heard in a world that is most the time too busy to stop and listen. In Journalism we, as students, get a taste of what the modern work day feels like since we are assigned our own stories, have deadlines, and have to distribute the paper when it gets printed. Journalism has given students training for jobs we may have in the future. It has taught us that we don't need to procrastinate and have to get our work done on time and if we don't there will be consequences. Journalism has shown me that in the real world no one will hold my hand or give me several chances; when I’m given an assignment, I need to get it done because the assignment becomes my full responsibility. Not only has Journalism taught me time management, it has also proved very helpful in improving my writing skills and this is one of our teacher’s main goals. “I have been teaching Journalism at West Florence for 23 years and every year is different and exciting,” said Kim Cimney, Knight Life adviser. “I love seeing students improve their writing and see their work published.” We have learned to write unbiased articles, writing nothing but the facts and how not to add fluff in our writing to make the paper seem longer. Journalism has also allowed me to learn how to talk professionally to the people I am interviewing. Interviews are where journalists get almost all their information and have to be done professionally so we had to learn how to conduct professional interviews. Not every job requires professional interview skills, but most jobs do expect you to know how to talk professionally to your boss and colleagues; Journalism has taught us how to do that. We have also learned leadership traits. In the class we currently have three editors, Hanna Jeffords(11th), Kayla Pinkerman (11th) and Khylie Nero (11th), whose jobs are to write the only opinionated part of the paper: the editorials. On top of all their other stories editors are given the extra responsibility of one more additional story every issue. Editors are also supposed to be leaders by example and to help the rest of the staff in their work if needed. Journalism has taught me a lot of very good traits I can use in the workforce and also lets me produce writings of which I am proud. Most teenagers write papers just to get the grade and most of the time don't feel proud of their work since they were more concerned about the grade than what they were writing about. Journalism has allowed me to produce work I am proud of and this doesn't go just for me but also for many other students in the class. “I got my story on the front page of the first paper,” said Gwendolyn Buddenborg, a sophomore, when asked what she is most proud of being on the Knight Life staff. Students in journalism class are proud of their
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