Anna WheelerPortfolio

Background Information:

My name is Anna Wheeler and I go to Carlmont High School. I have two younger sisters.

Journalism Background:

I joined the journalism program at Carlmont during my sophomore year for no reason other than to fulfill a graduation requirement. However, as the year progressed, I found myself enjoying journalism more and more. By second semester, I started as a junior editor. By my junior year, I edited both the Features and News and Opinion sections. Journalism has changed the way I look at things in everyday life.

After High School Plans:

After I graduate from high school, I plan on continuing my journalism career, whether it be through a major, a minor, or simply writing for my future college’s paper.

Table of Contents:

Written Articles (Print):- The battle between sleep and homework- Fast Food Fattens Us- Poetry Month returns- Facebook addictions affect student lives- How to make friends with the best benefits

Written Articles (Online):- Changes in Catholic Mass elicit a variety of reactions in churchgoers- Carlmont English teacher named Teacher of the Year- Life in the Library- PSAT: Preparing to Prepare- Farewell to Belasco: A look at the Editor-in-Chief ’s life at Carlmont

Layout Designs:- News and Opinion- Features- Features- Kony 2012- Health

Written Articles(Print)

High school is, for many students, a time of stress, and homework may be one of the biggest, most promi-nent causes of that stress. A large number of students have found that the only way they are able to get all of their homework done is by either staying up late doing work or waking up early to finish. Students who are not able to avoid missing out on sleep in order to finish their work are faced with the question: Is it better to stay up late or wake up early to get work done? According to an article on www.sciencedaily.com, a website that provides scientific news, “sleep is associat-ed with better academic performance.” This may seem fairly logical to people, but there may be times when they are not able to get a full night of sleep. So how are they supposed to know whether it is better to take time away from their sleep in the morning or at night? Texas University did a study in 2008 that proved that early risers did better on their test scores and school work. Some speculated that these results may have to do with the fact that when students are already awake due to studying, they are more prepared for the day ahead of them. However, on the other hand, the University of Ad-elaide did a study on more or less the same topic. De-spite the similar subject matter, their research proved that “the human brain learns more effectively in the evening.”

Although research does seem to back up both of the studies, it may be more complicated than that. Some students find that it all depends on whether they are a morning person or a night person. Junior Vanessa Pizziconi stated, “I’d rather stay up late and do homework or study because I hate waking up early and I usually lay in bed and can’t fall asleep until late anyways.” Research done by www.scientificamerican.com, which is a website that shares the latest science news, proved that people who rise early tend to crash faster than those who prefer staying up late. Although “early birds and night owls were equally alert” during the first hour and a half, ten and a half hours into the experi-ment, “the night owls had grown more alert” due to “the body’s circadian clock,” which “sends signals to boost alertness as the pressure to sleep mounts.” Despite this, Pizziconi still noted that, on a scale of ten, she would still rank her level of fatigue “a seven.” On the other hand, Kat Meyers, a freshman, stated, “I would rather wake up early and do homework because I seem to be more focused throughout the day if I do that. Even though it can be hard to wake up early, I end up getting more done and it’s easier to stay on task, since I don’t have things like Facebook to distract me.” Although there have been different theories as to what is the best time to get work done, it seems that it all comes down to the individual.

The battle between sleep and homework

America is well known for being overweight and unhealthy. Most Americans are highly offended by this accusation, but how far off is the stereotype? According to an article in 2006 by www.nationalnews.com, “Americans are getting nearly one-third of their calories from junk foods: soft drinks, sweets, desserts, alcoholic beverages, and salty snacks.” A lot of people eat fast food and junk food on a very regular basis. Junior Byron Wu stated that he eats fast food “once a week.” Some people, however, eat junk food on a regular basis but take the healthier ways around it. “Speaking generally, I eat at In-N-Out about once a week, but I always only get protein burgers and no fries,” student John King said. A protein burger is just a regular burger, except the bun is replaced by lettuce. Although a healthier alter-native, it is still considered fast food. On the complete opposite side, some people try to avoid fast food at all costs. “I rarely eat fast food,” junior Kelly Shrader noted. An article written in 2006 on www.slowfood.gather.com explained that while 70 percent of people eat their dinners at home, almost half of those meals are fast food, delivery, or takeout. Clearly the majority of Americans have a long way to go before one can consider their lifestyles healthy. On top of that, www.cdc.gov/, a website based on disease control and prevention, presented data which showed that approximately 33.8 percent of adults and 17 percent of children ages two through 19 in America

are obese. Perhaps supported by the above data, people assume that the primary reason for obesity is fast food. “The main cause is the low prices and advertisements of fast food, if not the fast food itself,” King stated. America has a huge variety of fast food restaurants, some exclusive to certain states. In-n-Out is an exam-ple, with locations only in California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and Texas. There are also the fast food restaurants that are not only countrywide, but worldwide. McDonald’s, for example, has over 13,000 restaurants in the United States, serving about 46 million people per day. Internationally, McDonald’s has about 32,000 restaurants. If it is true that fast food is the main cause of obesity and being overall overweight, then why is it that Amer-ica is ninth on Forbe’s list of World’s Fattest Countries (released in 2007), while the United Kingdom is all the way back at 28th? Sure, the US has more McDonald’s restaurants – about 11,000 more in fact – but it also has 246 million more people living in it than the UK does. The num-ber of McDonald’s restaurants per person in the UK is actually higher than the number of them here per person. This supports the theory that America’s weight prob-lems do not rest solely on fast food. Most people would agree that fast food is by far the biggest contributor out there, and is rapidly getting more and more dangerous to everyone out there.

Fast Food Fattens Us

National Poetry Month was intro-duced in 1966, and since then, it has been celebrated in the United States and Canada every April, as well as Great Britain in October. National Poetry Month was estab-lished by the Academy of American Poets, which is a nonprofit organi-zation that aims to support Ameri-can poets at all stages of experience and raise appreciation for poetry. Marie Bullock founded the Acade-my of American Poets in 1934 after she returned from Paris to America and saw the admiration and aware-ness the country lacked for poetry. Within Carlmont, National Poetry Month is celebrated with great en-thusiasm. Probably the best known example of contribution from Carl-mont students and teachers is the door decorating contest. Students receive a large piece of paper and decorate it with a poetry theme. It brings great artwork and poetic spirit to the school. The Creative reWriters Club have also found their own ways to sup-port National Poetry Month. Ms. Carolyn Wallace, the advisor of the club, shared that the club has want-ed “to celebrate National Poetry Month by encouraging students, administrators, and teachers to read poetry selections during Carlmont’s daily bulletin announcements.” The club would also like to do po-etry readings in April, and this has become seemingly more able due to the new video announcements. Ms. Wallace, as an English teacher, also allots time during her English classes for National Poetry Month. “Each April, I teach a poetry unit during which students read and study published poetry and com-

pose original poems,” she said. Her students write po-etry and read them aloud

to the class to receive constructive criticism. Ms. Jenny Bonjardim has a simi-lar approach to poetry. “We do a poetry unit, which covers types of poetry, as well as elements and rhyme.” Although English teachers may have different ways of getting their students into poetry, they are very enthusiastic about it. “I love po-etry because it’s a combination of languages, images, sounds, and emotions.” The history of National Poetry Month begins with Marie Bullock. Bullock founded the Academy of American Poets in 1934 after she returned from Paris to America and saw the admiration and awareness the country lacked for poetry. The Academy today supports poets at all skill levels, from aspir-ing poets to accomplished and published poets. They host many events, such as poetry forum read-ing, poetry discussions, and much more. However, the Academy’s most well-known event is National Po-etry Month, which, as stated previ-ously, has been celebrated in every state in the United States since 1966, as well as Canada in 1999. Great Britain has also taken part by declaring October their National Poetry Month since 2000. Each year brings new ways to celebrate. For example, the Acad-emy has celebrated National Poetry month by distributing books, issu-ing posters, and having people vote for a poet that they wanted to have on a postage stamp. The Academy also offers several ways for people to get involved.

Booksellers, libraries, schools and just about anyone can check out the Academy’s official website, www.poets.org, to see what they can do to promote the appreciation of poetry. On a list of ways to celebrate Na-tional Poetry Month, the Academy encourages people to read a poetry book, memorize a poem, add verse to email signatures, sign up for a poetry class, and much more. Overall, National Poetry Month is a great way to get in touch with the magic and artwork that is poetry.

Poetry Month returns

In many aspects, Facebook makes things much more convenient, but it seems to have become a way of putting off work. For example, stu-dents everywhere find themselves coming home with the intention of doing homework but end up on their Facebook profiles instead. Facebook, with over 500 million active users, is an easy escape from the real world. In this time period, a majority of work is done on computers. Many teachers require typed up papers and a lot of grading programs, such as Infinite Campus, are now online. But on the other hand, how much work is truly accomplished with the knowledge that Facebook is just a few clicks away? According to the Statistics page on Facebook, users spend over 700 billion minutes on Facebook per month. Just imagine how much time is taken away from possible productivity time and given to Facebook instead. “I have Facebook on my phone, so even when I’m not on the comput-er, I use it to an unhealthy extent,” Quinn Haaga, a sophomore, said. However, some have their addic-tions controlled. “I use it for about ten minutes a day. Otherwise, I’ll waste away all my time on it,” Ra-

chel Schuster added. This social networking site offers a variety of things: chat, the options to leave videos and wall posts on the walls of friends, the ability to upload pictures, and much more. But how much time can really be spent on all of these things? Af-ter a few comments and a chat or two with a friend, users are left with even less to do than they had before. In fact, there are actually Facebook trends. The first truly memorable one to many people was Farmville. “I would be on Farmville con-stantly, and I got updates sent to my phone,” Haaga noted. However, since then, it has moved on to other things. When asked what she spends the most time doing while online, Haaga said, “I either talk to people or play Robot Unicorn Attack.” So, with so many things to do, one might begin to wonder what the motivation of Facebook was. On a Facebook blog written on September 8, 2006, Facebook cre-ator Mark Zuckerberg explains his reasoning. “When I made Facebook two years ago my goal was to help people understand what was go-ing on in their world a little better. I wanted to create an environment

where people could share whatever information they wanted,” he wrote. Digging deep into the history of the popular social networking site, in an interview with Time.com, Zuckerberg revealed that, origi-nally, Facebook was only open to college students. Even before that, just students enrolled at Harvard, where Zuckerberg attended, were permitted to sign up. Although it has surely achieved that, there is a big chance that Facebook has done more than Zuckerberg had bargained for. In small doses, Facebook is wildly efficient and helpful, but with its users worldwide using it as a tool for communication as well as procrastination.

Facebook addictions affect

student lives

The majority of students at Carlmont are familiar with the program Stu-dents Offering Support, which is more commonly referred to as S.O.S. S.O.S is a support program that is run by Shelley Busta-mante, Carlmont’s guid-ance counselor. A lot of students be-lieve that S.O.S is very helpful and beneficial to Carlmont and its overall atmosphere. “I think Ms. Bustamante is amazing. She’s always there for me when I need someone to talk to, and S.O.S is the same way; they’re amazing,” Sopho-more Crystal Cortez stated. The SOS group consists of hundreds of members who come from all types of different backgrounds. A select few of these members are leaders of sub-sections within S.O.S. S.O.S presents to fresh-men about a variety of

different topics which are typically prominent in high schools. These pre-sentations are done by the members of S.O.S over a span of about a week and take place in freshman history classes. According to Kendal Wise, a member of S.O.S, these topics include “practicing safe sex, homophobia, anxiety and depression, bullying, academic success, healthy relationships, alcohol and drug resistance, and fam-ily troubles.” S.O.S provides a much more hands-on method of helping as well. “The members of S.O.S also counsel their peers with whatever they need to talk about. Core mem-bers hold conflict media-tion, which is when two or more students become involved in a conflict amongst each other, and S.O.S kids sit down with them, talk about the

problem, and come to a resolution,” Wise added. On top of that, the S.O.S presentations to the fresh-men classes during the 2011-2012 school year inspired the beginnings of a few new groups. “Out of the blue during the second semester... a few students created their own groups based on their personal experienc-es: hate crimes, LGBTQ acceptance, and H.O.P.E (healing our past experi-ences),” said S.O.S mem-ber Steven Tsujisaka. Hate crime is violence against others based on gender, race, religion, sexual orientation or identity, disability, and more. The group will present to Carlmont stu-dents. Furthermore, some S.O.S members will also be giving a presentation to a high school in New-port Beach. The LGBTQ acceptance group was created by a

student based on his own experience with dis-crimination due to sexual orientation. The last group, H.O.P.E, focuses on people who have gone through “a life-altering and traumatic experience such as death in a family or sexual abuse/violence,” explained Tsujisaka. These groups cover is-sues that are extremely prevalent in high school. They have broadened the horizons of S.O.S. Wise sums up the es-sence of S.O.S: “Aside from the actual work we do, I personally think the most important thing SOS does is form an outstanding group of kids of all different grades, personalities, and person-al experiences that unite us as one big, close-knit family. We help others who are in the process of helping themselves.”

How to make friends with the best benefits

It’s not easy being red

Community colleges vs. four year colleges

Written Articles (Online)

The Catholic Church has been around since about 107 and is the world’s largest Christian church, with over a billion members.

Since 1973, there has been an English-language missal used for Mass. This translation from Latin to modern day English was supposed to be temporary, as it was messily done and not verbatim with the original text.

This intent was followed through. As of the first Sun-day of Advent, Mass has been changed to a more ac-curate translation from Latin.

The new translation includes a change in one of the most basic parts of church: Catholic churchgoers have grown accustomed to responding to “Peace be with

you” by saying “And also with you.” With the modi-fications, it has now been changed to “And with your spirit.”

Now, instead of saying things automatically, churchgo-ers are forced to think about their responses before-hand.

Many are uncomfortable with the changes solely be-cause they are not used to it.

However, in many opinions, it is not a bad change to have been made, as it is much closer to the actual text.

According to Archbishop Timothy Dolan, “It’s beauti-ful, it’s more poetic, more uplifting… It’s more to the definitive text, which is Latin.”

Changes in Catholic Mass elicit a variety of reactions in churchgoers

Carlmont has many great programs and classes offered, and everyone knows that it would not be possible if it weren’t for the teachers and administration. Raphael Kauffmann is one of those great teachers that we have to thank.

Kauffmann was recently named San Mateo County Teacher of the Year for 2012, an accomplishment to be very proud of.

Although honored, Kauffmann believes that “in many ways the award is for things Carlmont’s English depart-ment has done together, so it’s kind of a shared honor.”

This is Kauffmann’s seventh year teaching at Carlmont, which was his first full-time teaching job. He teaches English I and English III, and is, on top of that, the English Department Instructional Leader.

“While I did not always see myself as a teacher, I always thought about it in the back of my mind,” Kauffmann stated. “I was a musician growing up and expected to become famous playing in a band.”

Kauffmann got his degree in Broadcasting & Electron-ic Communications at San Francisco State University. He played music for about ten years, and “loved it, but it was not a very steady lifestyle, or a healthy one for that matter.”

It wasn’t until Kauffmann met his wife that he started to want to do something different. He started helping a friend of his, a teacher, by starting a recording studio project at her school.

“It was what made me want to become an English teacher. Helping the kids learn to write was very pow-erful… Music has never left my classroom… but I am an English teacher through and through.”

The students at Carlmont are very lucky that he de-cided to pursue a career in education.

Kauffmann’s advice to any aspiring teachers: “Keep aspiring. Teaching isn’t about reaching the summit and pitching a tent.”

Carlmont English teacher named Teacher of the YearArticle link: http://www.scotscoop.com/?p=15491

Article link: http://www.scotscoop.com/10099

Carlmont has so many amazing programs and depart-ments that some of them sometimes don’t get as much recognition as they should be getting. One of the main departments on Carlmont’s campus is the Library Me-dia Center, commonly known as the library.

It may not seem like much at first, but there’s a tremen-dous amount of work done that not many people know about.

Librarians Alice Laine, library research and class as-signments services, and Donna Feitelberg, textbook services, work together in order to keep the library running as the well-oiled machine that it is.

Laine has been working at Carlmont’s library for six years now. She has both teaching and library creden-tials as well as a master’s degree. Her job is to work with the students and teachers to supply students with the proper materials. “What people don’t understand is how much time collection development takes,” she said. Laine spends a large amount of time adding to the

fiction and non-fiction book collections.

On the library’s website, Laine creates research pages filled with web links, book titles, newspaper articles, and more references for students working on class research projects in the library.

On the other side of the library, Feitelberg is working just as hard managing classroom textbooks. Her job is to distribute and collect textbooks throughout the course of the school year, and even into the summer. She works for 11 months, getting only July off for sum-mer vacation. Feitelberg also manages the distribution and rotation of English novels for classes.

Feitelberg, claims that her “favorite question to be asked is ‘Do you ever get bored?’” It amuses her be-cause it shows that, in reality, everyone thinks there is so little to do when the truth is, the library staff puts so much effort into managing the library to make the library system easier for all students and teachers. It just proves that all their hard work has paid off.

Life in the Library

With the PSATs coming up on October 16, many stu-dents are preparing – but are not quite sure what they are preparing for.

The PSAT, or the preliminary SAT, is taken so that stu-dents can get preparation for college admission tests, such as the SAT, and can be taken by sophomores and juniors, but do they really even know what they need to get ready for? Students who sign up for the PSAT re-ceive a paper booklet with sample questions, but other than that, what preparation is available to them?

Because it is optional, there is not necessarily any standardized preparation done. In AVID, however, the PSAT is mandatory sophomore year, so there is some specific work to be done for it. “We got a packet

that we’re supposed to read,” said Vanessa Pizziconi, a sophomore.Luke Li, also a sophomore, is not in AVID but plans on getting ready for the PSAT using his own methods. “I’m going to read the booklet we received and maybe read some SAT words,” he explained when asked what he would do in order to prepare.

There are students who do not feel the pressure of preparation. Junior Aimee Lucchesi admitted that she is only planning on doing preparation for her SAT. “I’m not prepping for my PSAT,” she said.

Mindy Yasuda is also one of those students not taking full advantage of the time she has to get ready. “I’ve done some prep work, but probably not as much as I should have,” she reported.

PSAT: Preparing to PrepareArticle link: http://www.scotscoop.com/6726

Article Link: http://www.scotscoop.com/?p=1595

Whether or not the Highlander is as widely read as the staff would like, we do put a lot of work into it. One of the main people who pull it all together is Christina Belasco, a senior student and the Editor-in-Chief.

During her years at Carlmont, Belasco played basketball all four years. She also played softball, but “got bored of it and didn’t pursue it during high school.”

During Belasco’s junior year, she took AS English III, pre-calculus, US history, band, physics, and journalism. In her senior, Belasco’s schedule consisted of creative writ-ing, clerking for Mr. Waller, Inter-national Relations/AP Compara-tive, film critique, AP Government and Econ, and journalism.

Although Belasco joined journal-ism because it seemed to be a fun class, she got much more out of it. “Journalism has been my favorite class since I joined. Journalism and clerking for Mr. Waller,” she said.

When asked what she was going to miss the most about Carlmont, her response was “the people.” Un-like the majority of the graduating class who are staying in California, Belasco is going to attend college at University of Oregon beginning next school year this fall.

“Oregon was my top choice college when I was applying because it’s a great school with a lot of school spirit. It’s also a really pretty cam-pus and close to both the beach and the snow,” Belasco responded. She is so far undecided about what she wants to study, but she knows that she wants to study abroad eventu-ally.

On a more random note, Belasco spends her free time shopping, spe-cifically for crop tops and Hudson jeans, watching Glozell on You-Tube, and listening to Taylor Swift.

Belasco’s overall impact on the school newspaper has been influen-tial, and although she won’t be with us next year, she’ll be here in spirit.

Farewell to Belasco: A look at the Editor-in-Chief ’s life

at Carlmont

Article link: http://www.scotscoop.com/8178

Layout Designs

For this layout, the obvious graphical focus is the social networking article. To draw

attention to it, I simply added logos from a lot of the big social networking sites.

For this specific design, I tried to keep it simple for

the left page. I added a few subtle elements, such as the simple information box and

the recycling sign.

For the bullying spread on the right page, I tied together the two articles

with the Bullying headline. The definition at the top

also emphasized the theme.

The left page is filled with small pictures that

summarize what each story is about. The mountain lion story also has a small and simple infographic which

explains what to do in case of a mountain lion attack.

The right page also has relatively simple designs. The main graphic is the timeline underneath the year in review story. This

timeline was done to show the main points of the story

itself.

I chose to keep this spread simple. There clearly is no dominant graphic. However,

I did this for a purpose. By keeping the pictures on the two pages simple, the main focus is placed on the stories themselves, as it should be. I chose to do this specifically

because Kony at the time was an important and slightly misunderstood topic, so I

thought that keeping the graphics simple was the best thing to do.

This design is clearly more graphically

focused than the others that I have done.

This particular page was in the last issue

of 2012, which was in full color. Because it was in full color, I

took advantage of it and made the headlines bright colors in order to

draw attention to the page, as well as to

reflect the fact that summer

was near. Furthermore, health may seem a dull

topic to many. The font color negates this

thought.

I used green for the quiz in order to make it look more appealing than it already was; if it were in black and white, it would look

out of place on the colorful page.

On the left side of my spread, I had a lot of space for one article. To complement the text, I used a

poll and a screenshot from the Facebook page that the article was about. The infographic on the right side was originally horizontal, and I had to split it in order to fit it onto the page. The article on the bottom of the right page was kept simple without any graphics to distract from the main idea of the

article.

This spread was very text heavy, so I used a few simple infographics (such as the

class ranking chart and the “How Will You Apply?” chart) as well as the more detailed

infographic on the right. Overall, it was kept simple in order to ensure that the page

was not too overwhelming.

This spread is one of my more graphic spreads. With a picture to go with every article and an infographic

on its own, I had to be careful with the balance of the page. I had to make sure that nothing was too

overwhelming.

The EndNote: The articles and layouts included are not everything I have

done.