Royal Oak High School Students Recognized For Journalism

ROYAL OAK, MI — Acorn, Royal Oak High School’s quarterly, student-lead magazine, was recently presented with the Michigan Interscholastic Press Association’s highest rating, the Spartan Award, for the first time in nine years.

The rating was awarded based the publication’s news and sports coverage; writing and editing; design; photography and graphics; and editorial content. Three issues of Acorn were also critiqued by national journalism leaders and returned to the publication’s 27-person staff with the award.

Ann Maudlin, English Language Arts teacher and adviser for Acorn, said it is particularly special for students at ROHS to be recognized for journalism.

“There were goals set at the beginning of the year,” she said. “We were going to enter this contest, we were going to make the changes that we outlined in the fall, and the students followed through.”

Editors-in-chief Megan Shaffer, senior, and Lindsey Vaitkevicius, senior, spent the summer combing through last year’s submission and developing an improvement plan.

“Last year, our class as a whole was more focused on the design aspect of the magazine,” Shaffer said. “This year we really put the focus on writing good quality stories, and keeping the layouts a little more simple, while still keeping them up to par.”

Made up of sophomores, juniors and seniors, Acorn, covers a variety of topics, like school news and broader news pieces that are localised for the ROHS population.

“I think the mission of the publication has evolved,” Maudlin said. “Ultimately, we hope to honor our readers, encourage a variety of voices and opinions, and devote ourselves to the pursuit of truth.”

According to MIPA’s website, the organization is a nonprofit “composed of scholastic journalism teachers and publications advisers and their students. MIPA is committed to promoting and recognizing excellence in scholastic journalism at all levels through education, training and support of student journalists and their advisers.”

Photo courtesy Royal Oak Schools

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