Dear TPT Underclassmen,
AP exam booklets have been sealed, final projects have been finalized and the seniors are scrambling around the school in their closing weeks at CHS. Now that May has rolled around, the 2023-2024 page in our newspaper has come to a close. The next page will be all yours, and we can’t wait to see what you all will make of it.
Out of the 33 students entering this class for the first time in August, 16 were freshmen writing their very first articles. It’s been a wonderful journey seeing you all find your own style and write about topics you enjoy, from sports photo essays to climate-action articles. And, of course, improving your AP style, even if that’s still a work in progress (cough, oxford comma).
But seriously, congratulations on an amazing year. There is a great amount of journalistic talent among you all, and we can’t wait to see what astonishing articles you’ll write next. We hope that we were good leaders for you all this year so that you’ll be able to help guide next year’s freshmen.
We’re thrilled to see the many creative contributions you’ve made to The Purple Tide. The new Instagram stories have been a unique and successful way of engaging students throughout the school, and those of you who are underclassmen on the editorial staff have experimented and crafted your own unique page designs that make The Purple Tide full of life. We can’t wait to see how you all continue to expand the newspaper both online and in print.
Coming up with story topics when you’re out of ideas is never fun, so try to explore different subjects and learn more about what’s going on in the school and the rest of the county. There’s always an interesting story that you can find from individuals and small groups, so keep yourself open to talking with clubs and people you may not usually talk with.
Speaking about writing stories, one of the best ways we’ve found to improve and come up with more ideas is reading each other’s articles. Try reading your fellow staff members’ articles when they release in print and online; it’ll help you learn about other styles of writing and give you a good source of inspiration (also, it’ll help our ratings on the website).
Finally, just make sure you’re reaching out to each other and collaborating. Learning more about the rest of the school is important, but so is learning about the rest of the staff. Journalism is a great opportunity to make new connections with underclassmen, upperclassmen and people in your grade you wouldn’t normally be friends with. It’ll help you find interviews, bounce ideas off of one another and make the class a lot more fun. Just don’t talk too much; it’s funny to joke about procrastinating until it’s a day before sign-offs are due.
All in all, just make sure you’re trying new things, but still be proud of all the work you’ve done so far. You all have made amazing contributions to the paper, so much so that we might consider coming to visit next year. But, for real, congratulations to all of you and thank you for creating a great final year for us. Make sure to check your GroupMe messages from time to time. We know you’ll make us proud.
Sincerely,
The TPT Seniors
