A Preview

Of a writing piece in the works.

Hi Dr. Aronow,

I'm Shelby Kay-Fantozzi, a senior at the high school. I have a huge interest in journalism, but unfortunately a hectic schedule hasn't allowed me to participate in your class or really have any interaction with you at all in the past. However, I was wondering if you would accept a piece from a student outside of the Arrowhead's regular staff. While I take great ownership of my writing, I would be happy to submit it to whatever kind of rigorous editing process regular articles go through before being published. The piece is a recollection of why the 2008 election and its results were inspiring and important to all of us here at the high school. I realize that you likely already have an Arrowhead writer working on such an article, but if nothing else, I would love to hear the opinions of someone with expertise in editorial-style writing.

The day I decided to write the article, I was reading TIME magazine's extensive coverage Obama's win in our local coffee shop. While I was hunched in my chair reading, something poked me in the side. It was a pen, stuffed between the chair's cushion and its frame. It was a really nice one—heavy, cool, metal, a name and company embossed on the side. Judging by the name on the side, it fell out of Arthur Nissen's pocket as he sat in a similar position on that very chair. I generally don't subscribe to this kind of superstition, but I'll admit that I accepted this pen as a sign—a message. Stop reading. Start writing. Stop reacting to everyone else's words and start creating your own. It was one of those earth-shatteringly inspirational moments and though I had about a thousand other things to do, I opened up the magazine to an advertisement and started writing right on the page--"The defining moments of our lives and the defining moments of our nation's history do not very often coincide with each other as well as they did on November 4, 2008."

The piece isn't finished, and I don't know what kind of deadlines I'm looking at, but I would love to have a chance to share it with other students through the newspaper.

Thank you,
Shelby