This year, UWCSEA East Grade 9 and Grade 10 FIB students wrote powerful feature/op-ed articles during Writer’s Fortnight. Grade 9 and Grade 10 FIB students, including myself, had an opportunity to meet a few inspiring guest speakers who each shared a very unique and personal story that we could potentially write an article about. There were many guest speakers with fascinating stories, some of them being Graham Rawle (writer and artist-in-residence ), Sergey Grichishkin (Author), and Angela Noronha (Cialfo college guidance platform). I chose Angela Noronha, a former student at the University of Pennsylvania who decided to move to Philippines to help the victims of the typhoon, as my subject for my feature article.

“Our student-writers rose to the challenge, producing authentic, responsible and powerful pieces”

I totally agree that I, as a student-writer, “rose to the challenge” to produce an article. The challenge did not start occurring during the process of writing an article. In fact, it began as soon as the Writer’s Fortnight started. The first challenge I faced was the diversity of stories/experiences each guest speaker had. Because each story had its own richness and uniqueness that would capture human interest, I also had to focus on the resonance aspect of the stories – how it would resonate with my intended audience (High school students). With this in mind, when choosing my subject, I mainly focused on what high school students would feel like after reading an article about one of these speakers, whether they find it helpful, resonant, or unrelatable. I was finally able to decide my subject, Angela Noronha, as her story of turning down an Ivy League school can resonate with the majority of high school students who are at the stage of preparing for universities. Through the process of hearing stories from the guest speakers and choosing my subject/angle, I learned the diversity of people around the world, especially how their personal stories can be turned into an article to inspire or even motivate others. By listening to Enlai Yeoh, a journalist, I also discovered the significance of the journalist’s role, not only because they are the one writing the article, but because the delivery and understanding of the story hugely depends on the way journalists construct the article. This was also one of the biggest insights I gained during the process of choosing the subject, interviewing people related to the article, and writing the article as I realized the complexity and difficulty of constructing an article, as well as how the smallest of things, such as punctuations, word choices, and etc., in the article can completely change the way the subject is presented to the audience, hence altering the purpose of the article.

I also agree that the student-writers produced a very authentic, responsible and powerful articles. Because I knew that the way I write my article can affect the representation of my subject, I tried to make sure that my article is factually accurate and correctly portrays the subject. In order to ensure this, I sent my article to 5 nominated readers (including the subject) to seek for factual errors, grammar errors, and improvements in terms of better engagement. I found this very rewarding and helpful as 2 of the nominated readers (high school students) found my article very engaging and beneficial especially because it helped them realize the importance of decision-making and reconsider their stereotypes on universities that are not Ivy League schools. Knowing that this article will directly portray my subject and there will be people who are going to find the article helpful in some way, it motivated me to produce a responsible and powerful article as a way to be respectful to my subject. Furthermore, the subject herself was very understanding and helpful as she corrected some of the factual errors I had, as well as some of the uncertain explanations of her story.

Writer’s Fortnight helped me eventually realize how diverse the community I belong to is. Seeing the diversity of culture, people, and experiences was the most fascinating part of this project as I knew that all these stories and experiences of different people can be produced in a form of articles that are impactful, influential, and helpful.

One thought on “Writer’s Fortnight Reflection

  1. “I realized the complexity and difficulty of constructing an article, as well as how the smallest of things, such as punctuations, word choices, and etc., in the article can completely change the way the subject is presented to the audience, hence
    altering the purpose of the article.” A powerful insight.

    “2 of the nominated readers (high school students) found my article very engaging and beneficial especially because it helped them realize the importance of decision-making and reconsider their stereotypes on universities that are not Ivy League schools.” A great reward! You should be proud of your article, Daniel.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *