Dear Ms. Eshelman,
My project can demonstrate my interviewing skills and understanding of newsworthiness due to the amount of thought and work that I put into it. When interviewing people/classmates, I always make sure they have fully consented to the interview and I also am careful to make sure that they are comfortable with the questions I have planned. I make sure that I don’t include parts of the quotes where they sort of go off the topic of the article. During the interview, I try to ask questions that aren’t seen as an exact yes or no, more questions that make the interviewee have to go more in-depth for their responses. I also make sure to interview people who seem to have opposing views, so I can have more of a variety of opinions. At the beginning of the year, my additional facts and even my main facts had been weak and short. Over the past few months, I have been able to look more into my topics and get things that can support the topic, including the supporting background. Also, I tend to mostly focus on topics that are sort of relevant to our generation, such as new movie releases, or new album drops. Something to grab the students' attention, and is semi-enjoyable. I always, in every single one of my articles, make sure I have an unbiased stand. Or at the very least try to make sure my opinion isn’t seen in the article. When I gather people's interviews I always make sure to not change anything and leave the quote unedited. I also don’t slander anybody in any of my topics, I just state the general things about the person in the article.
2022-2023 is the first ‘normal’ year since 2019, when the COVID outbreak had hit America. Are people expected to believe everything is completely back to normal? March 13th 2020, Ex-President Donald Trump had made a public announcement saying that COVID-19 is now a known nationwide emergency. This had also started the nation shut down of all openly public areas such as schools, restaurants, stores, etc.
Most schools were expected to bounce right back after the four weeks that were taken off to prevent the spread, but when those four weeks got pushed back further and further everything got far more complicated. The start of the school year in 2020 was partially online, partially in school, and finally in the past year, the school had been able to diminish the mask requirements half way throughout the school year. Making this year the first normal school year since 2019.
“There are plenty of things that were different from last year. The differences between this year and last year are very different,” Lucy Clement, bhs freshman said, “Last year we had to play sports with masks which was an awful and terrible experience. It made it hard to breathe and made terrible tan lines on my face.”
While at the start of Covid, most spring sports had been completely canceled due to the easy infection. Beginning of the following school year, most sports had started up again, but with masks.This caused many breathing problems and made playing sports far more difficult than in previous years, especially for people with glasses.
“Sports without the masks are so much better and easier,” Sloane Wilson, bhs freshman said, “You can't, most of the time, breathe with it on, it was so difficult especially with the sudden changes.”
As of the end of sports fall season 2021, masks had been officially not a requirement for sports. This was a relief for a lot of athletes, this kind of change had been the start of a sign that soon, someday maybe, Covid would officially be diminished into a common cold. This had made people rejoice and really was the start of a semi-normal life again.
“Health wise, I do not think it affected me in any way because I don’t think I got covid but I probably did,” Lucy said, “Social wise, I am way more of a germaphobe. I am now more cautious about sickness, I use more hand sanitizer, and many more cautious actions.”
Covid has definitely made a lot more people highly cautious of germs, a few years ago somebody in Marshall Simonds had just gotten a common cold, but had to be sent home for two days and get tested. The fact that even the tiniest bit of contact with somebody with the virus would be able to get it so easily, obviously made people highly anxious. In February of 2020, hand sanitizer demands were up 600%.
“One difference about this year was that there were none of the COVID restrictions or outbreaks of it,” Sloane said, “Now it feels like everything is going back to the way they were before COVID.”
This year, being the first year without any sort of change in the schools, has been a pretty decent year. People are still dealing with the aftermath of the pandemic, for example losing a loved one or even the mental side effects of being stuck in your house for 6 months straight. Even though Covid had broughten terrible things to peoples lives, making people appreciate more of the small things in their life.
“I had felt very isolated and it was strange since I was in 8th grade going into 9th when the schools finally started to like- lessening the regulations,” Annika Philip, bhs Sophomore said, “Plus I was new to Burlington, so I was in a completely new environment along with the restrictions and masks.”