Students from all over District Six joined together on Oct. 19 ready to learn and gain an experience that could ultimately help their interests in journalism. Among the crowd of schools, the students from Coral Gables Senior High were prepared to take advantage of this opportunity. The Florida Scholastic Press Association, an association dedicated to supporting school publications, held their annual Fall Workshop at the Miami Dade College Kendall Campus. This workshop contained schools from all over District Six as they took part in different workshops and learned from professionals with various experiences in the journalism industry.
“It’s important for the students to socialize with other students that are in other publications and other schools to get ideas. They can kind of network and not just within them but some of the leaders out there that come and talk to them. Not only do they learn from them but they can connect with the professionals for future jobs if they’re interested in pursuing any similar careers,” Catharsis adviser Ms. Silveira said.
At 9 a.m., Cavaliers from all the publications in Gables met up in front of the gymnasium and were welcomed with a set-up prepared for the massive amounts of students that would be taking part in this experience. Setting the tone for the rest of the day, Lissette Gonzalez began the opening speech, speaking of her achievements through journalism as a meteorologist for CBS News as well as the changes she has had to endure in the journalism world.
“The workshop gave me better techniques on a camera which is something I found very useful. As well as the video workshops, because GablesLive is a video-based publication, so it taught me how to edit better and generally how to create videos better,” sophomore Nathaniel Woods said.
After the opening speech, Cavaliers met with their own peers, deciding which workshops they would attend based on their role in their respective publications. The day offered workshops ranging from lessons and tips on taking photos to teaching about the production of making podcasts to the importance of variety in journalistic articles.
Concluding their first two sessions, Cavaliers got together at 12 p.m. to take a lunch break and socialize with each other before reaching their last session before the awards ceremony. In their last session, these students carefully chose which workshop to attend, wanting to end their day learning information that will eventually help them in their respective publications.
“My favorite workshop was ‘Candid Photography’, [because] I really liked they way [the speaker] taught. I was able to take notes easily and she gave a lot of tips on candid photography based on her experience and I think those tips were really helpful and it helps with my work on GablesLive, especially when I have to take photos,” junior Christian Tomas said.
Once the Cavaliers wrapped up their last session, they congregated into the gymnasium at 2 p.m., excitedly anticipating the awards that their publications would receive. As tension rose and the awards that received the highly prestigious All-Florida were called out, Gables erupted into cheers as they won over 20 awards, including six All-Florida awards in combination with highlights, Catharsis, Cavaleon, GablesLive and CavsConnect.
“I was so proud of my publication [highlights]…We didn’t submit a lot of stuff but we pretty much won something for everything we submitted and I thought that was amazing and it says great things about our publication. I’m just really glad we went for it and it turned out really well,” junior Alyssa Dopico said.
These awards applied to students journalists like sophomore Luke Savage, who won an All-Florida award for his Deadline Written Opinion Column, showing his proficiency in writing. CavsConnect also won two Excellent awards and two Honorable Mentions. These awards continue to provide Gables with pride for their accomplishments while also opening Cavaliers’ eyes to the steps they must take in order to continue improving in order to earn more awards in the upcoming Spring Convention.
