Finishing up the last spread in class, Sr. Larissa Glover is focused on adding the final details and fixing the last few missed punctuation and grammar mistakes that she could find on the Student Senate spread—thinking that the book was finished and that the students did their best with a class size of nine people.
The yearbook class struggled a bit to keep up with all the work they had to do, with students having 8-10 spreads each with no partners. In the first semester, they had 10 people, and in the second semester, there were only nine in the class with large workloads. The teamwork was very good, but it was hard when they had to worry about getting their spreads in on time.
“Last year was very tough because we only had nine students in the class–that made it very difficult to cover all the opportunities that WO has to offer. I feel the students that worked through those difficulties did a great job and the book looked great,” Instructor Dave Drnek said. The class workload that the students have to do is substantial, and the result is a fantastic yearbook.
Along with the challenge of small class sizes and large workloads, they had a tough time with some teachers after the books were handed out. The students were hearing about the extra credit opportunity when finding common mistakes like grammar, punctuation, and spelling. “Last year’s yearbook was a hard project for everyone in our class. There were only nine of us to create an original book that consisted of 259 pages. It took a lot of work and commitment and when we finally finished it, it was a breath of fresh air, and we felt like we worked as hard as we could, and we felt complete,” said Glover.
The class started handing them out and that’s when she started hearing about the teachers giving out extra credit for any mistakes they found. In a student-created book of that many pages, mistakes are likely. Class members were upset that their mistakes were being highlighted.
“After working hard for 7-8 months and doing the best we could to find out people could get extra credit for finding mistakes in our work, it was pretty down putting. We put in a lot of time and effort and it was a rough year for the yearbook staff and knowing that people could boost their grade by finding mistakes we tried so hard to fix really hurt all of our feelings,” Glover said.
They couldn’t control the class size, and the fact that one of their classmates dropped the class at the semester created a larger and more difficult workload. Yet, despite all the stress, the criticism, for the extra commas, grammar that isn’t correct all the time, the students still persevere and continue to be creative and keep expressing themselves in the class. Ultimately, the quality result speaks to the students’ hard work.
A third challenge in the class is the early deadline. The yearbooks have a deadline of mid-March to get the yearbook completely done, and one teacher oversees the development of around 272 pages.
“It is crucial to verify the information on the pages – every mistake makes us look bad. We need to be thorough; the students purchasing yearbooks deserve that. We need to meet deadlines to keep costs low. Missed deadlines cost us money,” Drnek said. The class also has two editors, but they also have to carry their load and complete just as many spreads in the yearbook as the non-editors. The editors consist of 2-3 seniors or upperclassmen who have been in the class before and know what to look for in a body copy.
Also the yearbook committee has to go out and go into class hoping that kids will answer a question and take a photo, most people say no when a photo of them is needed, because it’s “too embarrassing” when in most cases people won’t even look at the photo itself but the answer that was written down.
Trying to find people who will answer questions and be willing to get their picture taken are difficult. Those who say yes are included more in the book; those who say no are not as present.
“It is already hard enough to write on topics we don’t necessarily know a lot about, but it is even harder when we ask our peers for help to try and get coverage and no one offers their help. A part of the class is trying to bring together the entire school and allow them to have their high school selves frozen in time so they can look back when they are older and remember what they thought in the past. It is really hard to do that; however, when we ask students for a quote and they refuse, it puts a lot of extra work on us, and we already have a lot to do in a limited amount of time. It would be helpful if our classmates could help us more,” Glover said.
The class allows members to get involved with the school, meet new people with similar interests, and more. Students might want to take the class because they think it’s a fun class to be in and it would look good on college applications. Some might do it because they want to be more involved in the school and need a reason to get out to sporting or club events and be able to show the school what West Ottawa has to offer. It also provides excellent training for employment in many types of businesses. Many students who take the class before their senior year decide to take it again because they enjoyed the class atmosphere.
“Joining yearbook made me more involved because I got to meet so many more people and make new friends. It helped me become more outgoing, social, and confident. I took yearbook because I heard it takes part in photography, and that’s what I wanted to learn more of and practice. Now that I’ve taken yearbook, I realized that helped shape a part of who I am,” said Sr. Myah Beltran. Beltran has taken yearbook for two years now, and the class has helped her grow her passion for photography. She tries to go to most of the school events she is able make, and has met lots of people because of the class.
Yearbook is a great class to take, because of how it can help shape kids into being more creative and going out and talking to people face to face. It can help find and build interest in things people might not know they like until they figure it out for themselves. It pushes people to work harder and take responsibilities in their work along with meeting deadlines and expectations. It can help them prepare for all the college free writes and creative thinking when creating a project. It has a lot of pros to high school students that don’t necessarily want to take Into to Art, or a basic art class to get their VPAA credit, knowing that they don’t like it.
Yes, it can be stressful at times but that’s a part of any class you take at WO. Being able to watch students get excited when receiving their yearbook and rushing to open and look through the book and see themselves, their friends and more is such a rewarding feeling. Just knowing that the work is going to be looked at decades later when most of us are adults with kids, and them wanting to see what life was like for us in high school. Yearbooks can have long-lasting memories that people won’t get back, and being able to be a part of creating the book and putting those memories on paper is something extraordinary.
