The Letter of News

Newspapers, magazines, and journals are an inseparable part of cultures around the world. Every person, sooner or later, comes across several forms of print media and is driven to learn its importance and significance.  On a global scale spreading important information to its intended subjects is called mass communication.  Undertaking such a meticulous task – albeit on a miniscule level – is challenging in itself. Therefore, our CAS coordinator Ms. Vijayalaxmi asked us to undertake the task of publishing a newsletter for our school. It was something I never did before but was certain that we will learn a lot by being the editors and compilers of the school Newsletter.

In this activity which accounted for 3 hours in total, I teamed up with my friend Shafqat who cooperatively worked with me to complete the publishing. Together, we planned an initial outline for our newsletter and then informed all the IBDP and IGCSE students to contribute their articles, essays, and opinion columns based on various school activities for the newsletter.

I myself wrote a poetry called Curiosity for the literature section of the newsletter. I had written poems before but never on demand and in a specific time. Initially, I was uncertain if I could do it for writing poetry requires creative thoughts and a peaceful mind, neither of which can be guaranteed always.  However, as I convinced myself to stick to it I was slowly able to compile a poem without having the associated thought s lingering in my mind for a relatively long time. I realised and definitely became aware for the first time that I could write poetry whenever I wanted to. I also learned how poetry is not just about writing what your heart says. Sometimes it involves considering the formal conventions and regulating some aspects of poetry including the ‘artistic license’. Since very few thought of writing poetry or a short story I also came to know about the preferences and mentalities of my friends. It sure helped me accept the fact that I am a unique individual with specific set of skills and so are they.  It is not necessary therefore that they may be equally interested in such cases.

Collecting all the different articles and reports from the interested students was a still an easier task. Reviewing them, editing them and presenting them in a palatable manner are some of the things we both struggled to achieve. Mainly, it is the conflict between freedom of speech and social convention which one must strive to resolve. We had to closely review the texts we received and edit them appropriately. In totality however, we learned a lot of things working together and really enjoyed producing a newsletter for our school. Following is our complete newsletter:

DYPIS Newsletter Aug-Sept 2013.pdf