Media Matters workshop impresses WLC group

Published: Thursday, December 3, 2009

On Nov. 5, four of my classmates and I attended the fifth annual Media Matters writing conference for high school teachers and students in Boston.

The trip was chaperoned by Wilton-Lyndeborough Cooperative teacher Dolores Neilan, who had been to the workshop before and promised a day of fun and educational information about writing as both a career and a hobby.

Our car of enthusiastic teenage girls arrived in Boston at around 8 a.m., and we boarded the subway shortly after. The “T” ride itself was entertaining, and a somewhat new experience for a few of us. We were excited to see that many of the people who had been on the subway with us were headed to the same destination: the University of Massachusetts campus.

Once arriving at our destination, my classmates – senior Gwen Griffin and juniors Ashley Bensmiller, Ashley Brock and Kalie Randlett – and I were given itineraries regarding where we would be going throughout the day.

Walking around the UMass campus and attending our classes gave us a good feel for the layout of college classrooms and the way in which classes are conducted. This was very interesting to us, as we’re all planning to attend college after we graduate from high school.

However, this college experience wasn’t the only aspect of the field trip that had great merit. The classes themselves were all engaging and well-taught. I found them to be highly relevant to careers in contemporary writing and the media.

One class that really stood out was “Spoken Word: Writing to Be Heard,” which was taught by Scherazade Daruvalla King, the executive director of AMPLIFYME, a Boston-based nonprofit organization that encourages positive change through media arts.

The class discussed how spoken-word artists and slam poets over the last few decades have made an impact on their societies, as well as techniques for creating our own powerful spoken word pieces and giving dynamic deliveries.

Overall, the trip was a huge success. My classmates and I enjoyed it greatly, as did Neilan.

“It was fun,” Bensmiller said. “It really helped me with my writing, and it would be a great field trip for any high school student interested in the media.”

I greatly value my experience at the workshop, and I encourage any student with a love for writing to attend the sixth annual Media Matters writing conference next November.

Shelby Newsted is a senior at Wilton-Lyndeborough Cooperative High School.