On Wednesday, October 2nd, award-winning author Daska Slater came to Oakmont and visited Mr. Mark Nevard’s B Block Journalism class. She designed her workshop as an Editorial Board Meeting. She spoke with the class about literary devices, how to structure stories, and ‘fresh-takes’ including sports, politics, and school issues.
Scheduled around an entire celebrating Oakmont’s school-wide summer reading choice of Slater’s The 57 Bus and Accountable, having a full workshop with journalism students merits much thanks. Thanks go to Oakmont librarian Mrs. Jenna Morin, who created and organized the day, and The Ashburnham Westminster Foundation for Academic Excellence, who funded the day.
Junior Kaitlyn Renda shared her appreciation of the visiting author saying, “I thought it was really cool seeing the author who wrote our summer reading books and hearing her opinions and stories.”
Many thought it was helpful and interesting what she had to say. Since she is an award-winning author, many people valued her input on what can make their writing better in the future.
She talked about structure, focusing on the main scene and then looping back and explaining everything that happened before in order to add context. Then, write the rest of the story from there. She talked about how including all the details is extremely important and how the most important thing is, to tell the truth, and respect the opinions and stories of the people who you are interviewing.
She also said to respect it if someone doesn’t want to talk to you. When we were writing ideas on the board, she talked about sparking conversations and having innovative ideas surrounding journalism and how you don’t understand anything in a situation until you actually investigate. Writers need to be aware of any bias or preconceptions they may have on a certain event, person, or story,
“I thought it was helpful that she told us what to focus on when writing and what can help refine our writing in the future.” stated junior, Megan Vance.
When we came up with a topic to discuss or ‘write a story on’, student-journalists appreciated her deep-dive into the topic and actually break down on what could be said about whatever subject we were talking about.
When she was talking about her work as a journalist, she expressed that she hadn’t had any formal journalism experience or education before getting hired, which implied the notion that if you do your best, tell the truth, and report things accurately, anyone can get into journalism.
“It was a discussion based and I really liked that. I really learned a lot about asking questions,” said freshman journalist, Aubrey Chagnon.
Overall, it was a great visit, giving a lot of important insight, helping students generate ‘fresh takes’ on ideas as to how to refine and better their writing in the future.
