The Student News Site of Harvard-Westlake School

The Harvard-Westlake Chronicle

The Student News Site of Harvard-Westlake School

The Harvard-Westlake Chronicle

The Student News Site of Harvard-Westlake School

The Harvard-Westlake Chronicle

Teachers introduce new classes

Three new courses will be offered next year at the Upper School: Broadcast Journalism, Analysis of Interactive Media and Advanced Placement Computer Science Principals.

Because Harvard-Westlake has been live broadcasting sports games and events, yearbook teacher Max Tash has created a Broadcast Journalism class.

The class will work in tandem with the Chronicle to build up production and reporting skills in a shared newsroom experience.

“Working in that kind of environment is very exciting and reflective of what is happening in newsrooms throughout the world,” Tash said.

Students will learn many aspects of what goes into broadcasting, including writing articles, editing audio and video and field production.

Another new class that will be introduced next year is Analysis of Interactive Media, taught by Michael Grier, which will focus on video games and how they contribute to telling a narrative.

“I think video games often get a bad reputation—they are treated as a valueless medium that we play as a mindless diversion,” Grier said. “However, there are a lot of games that feature rich narratives that can affect us emotionally. Games can share meaningful stories with us and we can learn from their morals and themes.”

The Kutler Center course will analyze video game narratives and the themes and morals that the games present.

AP Computer Science Principles will be added next year, broadening its scope to include music, art and web sites.

“[Coding] will be a part of all jobs in the future,” Mathematics Department Head Paula Evans said. “We need collaborative, creative teams that bring many skills to this world: art, music, design, philosophy, as well as science, math, etc. Much of the future development in our world will be firmly grounded in the world of code.”

Broadcast Journalism and AP Computer Science Principles will meet four periods each cycle and are available to all Upper School Students.

Analysis of Interactive Media will meet two periods per cycle and will be available to juniors and seniors.

 

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