Journalism sharpens writing skills

Ka Leo Staff, Student Life

Kalani High School offers an endless amount of electives, including News Writing taught by Ms. Brooke Nasser. The class teaches you about professional journalism and is a good choice if you want to improve your writing skills, whether it be for writing articles, essays, and creative fiction.

Jett Neeley is a fourth-year student and was put into the class by mistake his freshman year. He continued to take it through all four years of high school because it was “an easy A” but ended finding a passion for journalism.

“You develop amazing writing skills,” he said. “My writing has gotten so much better for even basic English essays.”

Neeley mentioned that he’s now able to arrange an essay quickly in his head and can organize material on the fly, skills the class teaches.

The workload for this elective, according to Neeley, is also not very heavy. 

“It’s just a couple of articles a quarter,” he says.

Students have to generate all of the content for the articles themselves, which includes research and interviews. Many students have to go outside of their comfort zones to succeed.

“The hardest work is probably going outside of school to interview somebody,” Neeley stated. “It’s graded pretty easily. If you give her the article, she’ll give you things you need to edit so you can get an A.”

Even if the elective seems easy, it helps student develops a strong passion for writing, which can help you in the future. Ms. Nasser brought Neeley a passion for journalism, which he believes can be the case for others in this class.