Q: How often do you publish issues? And who can write for them? I heard it was only Leadership kids… and how?
A: We publish issues once a month, on the first Wednesday of every month. Anybody can write for the Word; everyone is encouraged to send us an email at windermere.word@gmail.com or submit their articles on the “submit” page. No interviews or anything required. The articles we choose to publish are chosen based on whether it’s relevant, somewhat well-written, or if isn’t offensive or anything like that.
Q: If I just have ONE article I want to submit, like as freelance, can I do that?
A: Definitely! Send it to our email. Non-member writers are always very welcome to submit their works to us. :)
Q: Do the articles have to be environmental?
No, of course not! They can be of almost anything. We also frequently advertise for other clubs and school events.
Q: Why didn’t you guys have a Sports/Fashion/Comic/Advice section before!?
A: We didn’t have one because we couldn’t get any writers to send us their articles in on time. We have it now :)
Q: Who makes the paper every month?
A: Well, it’s a joint effort; our team of writers sends us, the editors, articles every month and we put them together. One of us is in charge of editing, another one is in charge of layout, and the last takes care of the website. Promotion is definitely a big task for the leaders and a lot of eighth-grade writers that volunteer to help each month. We always try to alternate/share the work.
Q: Why don’t you have a complaints section where the editors can reply back?
A: Sure, just send us an email and we’d be happy to address it. If it’s rather harsh, we appreciate that you don’t post it on the web blog because we don’t want to create any type of negative environment.
Q: What is your objective as a school newspaper? What is it that you are trying to achieve?
Obviously, as any school newspapers would like to do, we try to cover school events and make school life more interesting. Our main objective, however, is to educate others, especially young people, on things that they may be genuinely unaware of. As high school students ourselves, we believe that not enough is being taught in our curriculum. Time is mindlessly spent on studying for tests and working on assignments. That doesn’t mean extra-curricular activities do not exist – but where else are students getting their information on current events? Politics? Environmental issues? Social issues? How will they be prepared to enter the ‘real’ world? Perhaps your upbringing was a little different from us ‘baby boomers’, but generally speaking, if we want a better education, it’s up to us to get it. The Windermere Word just tries to help with that.
