Izzy Westercamp

Franklin Middle School starts up a journalism club made up of PACT students.

Franklin Middle School’s “Bolt Biweekly News” may just be the solution for advanced language arts classes throughout the district middle schools. With multiple newsletters already published, Program of Academic and Creative Talent (PACT) students can become involved in news.

As a solution for students that have passed out of iReady, a weekly math and reading lessons for students to better their skills, students have found they are bored in regular language arts classes, looking for more of a challenge. The team of advanced students assembled with their PACT teacher to create the solution the public can read today- Bolt Biweekly News.

The newsletter is built off of 22 students, each writing one article for each issue as well as reviewing each other as peers to improve.

“Most of us are very bored during our LA classes because the work is too easy,” Student Editor Emily Keating said. “For me, I haven’t felt like I learned anything new since fourth grade, even now, I’m only learning how to better my writing skills because of the newspaper.”

As PACT teacher Erin Traicoff said, the newsroom was created out of necessity, as all students involved are testing above their grade level and needed something more substantial.

“It really got everyone participating in writing and researching a lot more than we usually do in school, and that is really valuable,” Student Editor Amelia Jones said. 

The newsletter brings in ideas much bigger than the school, including district, state and country issues as well as reviews on books. 

“What really helps us stay motivated to do the newspaper every week is knowing that people are curious about it and want to read it,” Jones said. “Our paper is an outlet for Franklin students to get news from their school, town, state, and country, as well as reviews.”

Running a newsroom comes with roadblocks despite the help students get, but that doesn’t slow down the carefully thought-out solutions. 

“We had one article that was about the Chromebook carts that we have at our school and the problems that come with them,” Jones said. “The overall tone of the piece came off a little harsher than we had hoped for, and we are printing an edited version in the next paper.”

While writers may not see a future for themselves in journalism, students find the experience valuable in itself.

“I think all schools could try having a newspaper. It is very fun to write and it gets more people exposed to the news around them that they might’ve not known about if someone didn’t write about it,” Keating said. “Newspapers also allow kids to practice better writing skills and get used to finding credible sources.”