When I was drafting initially, I had no idea what to pick because I quickly realized I wasn’t as familiar with the school community as I thought I was. I’d been hearing complaints about the art building itself for a very long time, and even I was upset by the short period the student art gallery had been running for last year. From the beginning I knew I would pick art, but learning who I should pursue for them proved difficult. I found myself having to unlearn conventional essay writing and neglect aspects of creative writing to make my piece flow better by the end of it. When I did get workshopped, I was thankful for the criticism I received. I’d cut down on Claire’s background information, added less of my own opinion, and spaced out the paragraphs by using more quotes as break lines between my ideas.

Talking to any teacher made it difficult because they didn’t want to go on record saying anything bad about the school which made me feel guilty for asking them to participate, but my coworker and classmate ended up being the perfect people to interview. I was excited because it brought me closer to the community through quote gathering, and I was happy to see that Claire and Madison reflected my own thoughts about the humanities and arts on campus.

I would say what pushed this to the next level for me was definitely the workshop because I got so much criticism that I was excited to use in my project. It was criticism that I’ve never received before, either, since I’m usually more confident in other areas of my writing than I am in my journalism.