In my high school, and in most high schools around the nation I'm sure, music students are allowed to earn credits and re-take band and/or choir each academic year. It makes sense because it allows students to learn and perfect their music/singing abilities and perform new songs, right? Well if that's the case, why do writing students receive different treatment? Like music, writing is an ongoing skill that requires practice, criticism, education, and perfection.
In my high school, students are able to take 'Journalism 1' as an elective. I took Journalism my sophomore year of high school and fell in love. In my junior year, I was able to take 'Journalism 2' - a class that required one article to be written, edited, approved, and published each week for our school newspaper. That was my favorite class in high school. Although I write very different pieces today from what I wrote then, I know with 100% confidence that I am the writer I am because of my Journalism class and teacher.
'Journalism 2' is the last Journalism course offered at my high school, and once you took it, you weren't allowed to take it again. Luckily I fought for my right to re-take the course, and it was granted. However it was only granted for me and a few other students, and I'm not even sure if I earned credits for the class or not. The option to re-take J2 stopped after us. Why can't Journalism, like band and choir, be courses for students to continuously take?
Why can't there be an Intro to Journalism course to learn more about the format and writing process, and then an additional Journalism course for a student to continuously take throughout his or her high school career? After all, you cannot perfect writing within a year! A writer needs to be educated, make mistakes, learn from those mistakes, and try different perspectives and angles. Writers need to explore different genres and discover which they prefer writing about - opinions, sports, arts, news, school news, etcetera.
Student writers need to be educated, empowered and challenged. Writing programs should be encouraged and supported wholeheartedly, not de-funded. Make the playing field equal. Support student writers and their teachers.
