Students who take journalism classes are proven to get better grades in high school, earn higher scores on the ACT, and get better grades as college freshmen according to a study conducted by the Newspaper Association of America.

Some reason to take journalism classes are:

• Gets you involved
• Helps you meet new people
• Making new friends
• Builds your resume for college or a career
• Get to cover stories you care about
• Boosts skills(reading, writing, photo, video, design, business, technology, and more)
• You eat lots of food
• Be a part of writing Weir’s story
• You have fun!
• This could also prepare you for a career in professional journalism, media, public relations, and more

Weir Student Media adviser Morgan Bricker said, “Our journalism media classes at Weir do take a lot of work, but the end results are worth it. Any student who’s willing to put the effort in can enroll in our courses. There are so many benefits to joining staff, and in the end, students who do get to see their names and work published in print. They also play a huge role in recording a new chapter in Weir’s story.”

The Weir Student Media program offers several journalism classes for students to take. It isn’t too late to enroll. Below is a description of each journalism course offered here. If any of the classes sound interesting, see a school counselor to add it to your schedule today!

Journalism Prerequisite:

If you want to take print and video classes this class is required before! It is an introduction to journalism history, current events, press law and ethics, interviewing and information gathering, newswriting, journalistic style, photography, videography, publication design, sales and marketing, advertising, business management, leadership, and many more. If any of these things interest you this class is for you! Especially if you want to further any of the above skills.

Print: Newspaper and Yearbook

Newspaper is a class that involves a lot of writing, a bit of photography, designing, and communication. If you are strong in one or two of those categories maybe consider signing up for newspaper! You work cohesively as a staff. If one person fails to meet deadlines it affects everyone else in the class. You might not even get to print if this continues. You are required to write stories both in print and online on our website! Sometimes this may result in staying after school, so you can print.

If you’re the type of person who is responsible, works good under pressure, good at multitasking, wants a way to voice an opinion, or creative this class might just be for you! In this class there are leadership positions that, if you work hard enough, you might just get them! Some of these leadership jobs involve reading over the staff articles, pulling pages together for print, and many more!

Although, if you’re not a fan of writing articles, making yearbook pages might be your thing.  According to Bricker, students will develop a yearbook theme, write stories, take photos at school events, design pages, sell ADs, and more. Harley Kalo, a senior, explains how you have to be friendly and be able to go up and talk to people that you may not know. She says how you mostly just work on the yearbook in class. This class may require after-school meetings.

Video Journalism:

Maybe you don’t write at all and just want to do something with video. Video Journalism might be for you! This includes things like daily video announcements, a weekly news show, senior video, and other additional projects .

Likewise, students will learn script development, filed and studio production, and post-production. Although keep in mind that to be in this class you have to have had an A or a B in Journalism beforehand. This is compromised only for juniors and seniors who haven’t taken journalism can get permission to get straight into video journalism.

I can say from experience filming announcements is fun and you make a lot of memories! Kalo says how filming senior video is fun, although it takes awhile to edit. She also explains that technology is not always on your side.

Students are required to work on some tasks outside of class, including meetings after school and coverage of school events. In this class you have to work with Adobe programs to produce your multimedia projects. Students who are deficient in English credits WILL NOT be accepted into this class.