even though through sophomore year i was a great english student, i got tired of the same 'read a book-and-write an essay' phenomenon over and over again. one of my friends who was a year older than me told me to take newspaper in junior year, and i'm glad i did. the entire class works as a team to put out a print, which is actually really cool, especially when your writing and hard work gets published. we have 'mini units' that break up when we're just writing about stories, but the cool thing is the entire class comes up with story ideas on their own, so it's not just random things that teachers think are interesting. the first couple issues may be rough because it takes awhile to get used to the format of the class, but once you get the hang of it, it's really fun. at first, it feels really fast paced, but mrs. steil is pretty lenient with deadlines. don't be scared to reach out to her and the eic's for help, because i know for a fact i wasn't the only one super confused and lost within the process when the school year first started. the entire process of producing a newspaper has so many layers within it, it was really confusing the first couple of times we did it. also, we have the opportunity to go on a trip with the class! we are going to l. a. this year. there are other opportunities within the trip, like going to conventions with the writing.