Reporting & Writing
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Following the conclusion of a “Wellness Week” designed and executed by student leaders, we at Imua believed there was a lot more to investigate when “Wellness Week” was put in context of broader conversations and goals surrounding student wellness. Thus, I and two other staffers had to simultaneously integrate our perspective and the wealth of information from more than five interviewees, which proved to be challenging. This piece was also monumental for me because I co-wrote this piece with eighth graders just beginning their journalistic career. They valued the knowledge I shared with them about the journalistic process—especially pertaining to a higher-profile story.
When the interactive art piece “Flow” was installed as part of renovations in our Lower School, I was intrigued and wrote a story explaining the art piece and its larger symbolism in our school’s educational environment. Since a story about just the art piece would be bland, I, just a freshman at the time, reached out to the Dean of Upper School and Communications Department to draw connections and understand the implications of the piece beyond its location in Lower School. This led the piece to become a beautiful tapestry. Yes, I still think it is a tapestry to this day.
Even though our newspaper editors and staff had to work virtually to produce this issue, I still maintained communication with everyone and covered how a program, RaiderLife, aimed to bring excitement to distance learning. I struggled to get interviews and quotes for this piece, as teachers and faculty were still adapting to Zoom and had minimal time to meet with me virtually. In the end, though, everything worked out and I was able to speak to some influential adults on how to preserve a sense of school without being in it physically.
At the time of writing in 2019, the MrBeast movement to plant 20 million trees was spreading across the news and social media. Thus, a fellow staffer and I decided it was a good time to feature the ongoing sustainability efforts on our campus. We spoke to an English teacher having students read “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” and our school’s garden specialist to discover the specific actions our school was taking to promote sustainable living. As a reporter, it was very interesting to learn how the English teacher we interviewed grows a food forest in her own yard and her vision of “cooking out of your backyard.”
This was my first-ever piece as a reporter for Imua. I was tasked by my editors to feature some of the students who reside on campus in our boarding program. It took a lot of courage from me to interview students who were much older than me, but was very appreciative of my editors to accompany me at some interviews. This ignited my idea of how an effective interview is conducted. In terms of the piece, I succinctly captured each student’s sense of community. If I were to do this again, I would certainly integrate more direct quotes.
In this sports recap, I highlighted the major events of the game that won us the HHSAA Division I State Football Championship. The article was filled with specific statistics and player names to give the reader detailed information about the game. I did not integrate many quotes due to the nature of a recap and also because I wanted to keep the article brief. However, I did feel it impactful to use a quote from the coach at the end to bring a hint of emotion to an article that is otherwise information-heavy.
Considering both the national controversy and our school’s receptiveness to this pilot AP course, I knew it was imperative that Imua cover it. This piece required confidence from me to ask my interviewees difficult questions to integrate the controversy without making it the story’s focal point. Additionally, I had to analyze the course framework presented by the College Board alongside the teacher’s curricular goals to gain a balanced understanding of the course. After presenting my final draft to our Dean of Studies, I had to promptly respond to a concern about my capitalization of “Black,” which I cited using this AP article.
2023 HHSJA Investigative Journalism 5th Place
After discovering the recent progress of our school’s robotics team, I decided to write a story that encapsulated their new initiatives and the positive outcomes that resulted. This included speaking with a team member and coach about the team’s efforts to support a rookie team from Japan and outreach efforts internationally. At the World Championships that year, they were one of the top six teams to win the Chairman’s Finalist Award, so I made sure to include what that recognition meant to the team and program as a whole. The quotes in this article were very informative and inspirational.
Since tourism is a large part of our state’s economy, I knew it would be valuable to seek school perspectives on the pandemic’s effects on tourism. This piece was research-heavy (I researched the oldest origins of tourism in Hawai‘i) and involved me drafting specific interview questions for our AP Government teacher and a student who is part of Model United Nations. In addition, I had to ensure the quotes I got were substantive and not overgeneralized. In the end, I included some of my interviewees’ predictions as I knew this would be the most interesting for our readership, considering the plight at the time.
Imua always aims to feature some of our new faculty and staff each year in a way that is both brief and engaging. This feature introduced our school’s new Associate Dean of Studies, highlighting his role and delving a little deeper into some of his passions. In our interview, I enjoyed learning about his area of expertise in diversity, equity, and inclusion and how he eventually ended up in education after starting his career in film and photography (hence the title of the feature). Uniquely, those two still intersect in his mind today, and I devoted a portion of the feature to his passion for movie analysis.
Our Keables Speaker, brought in memory of longtime English teacher Harold Keables, in 2022 shared important messages across the campus in his time at school and I wanted to bring everything together as a reporter. Thus, I detailed what he shared about race, politics, and journalism through digesting an interview transcript from one of our reporters and hearing him speak in-person. I paid close attention to not editorialize and instead present Mr. Bouie, a New York Times columnist and CBS News political analyst, and his ideas as the centerpiece of the story. I did not forget, though, to tie everything back to our school motto—One Team.
With the rise in organic goods and companies’ promotion of sustainability, a fellow staffer and I looked into what vegan leather was all about. We did research and shared more about what materials the leather was made out of and the benefits and costs of vegan leather. This is my favorite sentence of the article (which I carefully crafted and edited): “For nature enthusiasts in our progressive era, vegan fashion options add another dimension of environmental conscientiousness.” Lastly, I was delighted when a teacher left a comment about how informative our article was.
