Kennedy students are beginning to pick out their classes for next school year and students that still need to complete an elective class for graduation have a large assortment of options, but many students are unaware of just how many elective class options are available for students to take at Kennedy.
Electives such as Journalism 1, Journalism 2, Decathlon, and Yearbook are all elective classes that credit towards graduation requirements. While there are other electives such as AP Human Geography, AP Psychology, and ASB that are more well known by students due to their advertisement among their friends and teachers, classes such as creative writing are not talked about as often.
Yearbook is held by Spanish teacher Sandra Mendivil, in which students organize picture and page assignments in order to make sure that the yearbook gets completed in a timely manner. With students ranging in grade levels from freshman to seniors, the yearbook is a class allowing students to use their creativity and put it into motion with the production of an actual book full of their work.
Sophomore Harleen Kaur stated, “We work together as a team by taking pictures of different events and organizing them into a format that can then be made into a yearbook.”
Similarly, Journalism is taught by English teacher Tim Ritenour, in which students learn the basics about writing in different writing categories such as news, features, opinion writing, and sports. Students also can learn how to take pictures with proper equipment and learn how to put it all together through a process called layout and produce a physical magazine or newspaper that they can keep or share.
Decathlon is a class held by social studies teacher Diana Daltorio where students learn new study methods in order to be able to compete with their fellow team members in categories such as art, economics, mathematics, literature, music, science, and speech. While helpful for their competitions, taking a decathlon class can be really helpful for better studying and work habits.
Junior Maryann Whitney stated, “In Decathlon we learn seven different academic subjects and participate in three events. It allows you to learn new skills that improve your ability to interact with and understand the world through more nuanced and educated lenses.”
These three electives supply students with a different experience while learning at Kennedy and should be opted to be taken. Other electives may seem more intriguing due to their high popularity and advertisement but classes such as these can allow for students to learn more about possible passions that they may have.
