MIPA’s Summer Journalism Workshop has become a home for journalists all around the country. Coming back to the camp each year becomes a week that student journalists can always look forward to. But for some campers, it is the start of their journey in journalism. For Allie Carver, the Journalistic Storytelling course has kicked off the future of journalism for her.
“I had an intro class and I will begin my first year of newspaper [next school year],” Carver said. “My teacher told me about MIPA, and me and a couple of my friends wanted to try it.”
The Journalistic Storytelling course provides background for students getting into journalism. The class offers the basics of writing and interviewing so when students go back to their high schools and work on their publications, they know what they’re doing immediately. For students like Ariana Glenn, coming to camp is a way to broaden and strengthen her skills.
“This class teaches new skills about journalism,” Glenn said. “I have been able to learn more about interviewing, I’ve been able to communicate with people more and have the right mindset of not being afraid to talk to people.”
Being able to teach a class about how to be a journalist and seeing the growth of students come into the program and leave ready for the journalism world can be credited to Jim Streisel. Streisel has been educating students at MIPA summer camp for more than two decades.
“One of the reasons I come back to teaching at MIPA is the students,” Streisel said. “The kids that come to this camp give up part of their summer where they could be doing anything and they’ve chosen to come to journalism camp.”
Journalistic Storytelling builds the foundation for journalism here at MIPA. It’s a start for journalism and a start for MIPA. Once the week is over and classes are done, they end a journey for students to learn about a different face of journalism. With storytelling, it branches off to any class for the future of journalism here at MIPA. Students like Annabel Yang want to come back and explore more within journalism.
“I want to come back to MIPA because I feel like the instructors for the courses are really passionate and they’re always trying to make this interesting,” Yang said.