Student Reporters: You Can Apply Now for the Second Season of Storytellers Without Borders

The Dallas Public Library and The Dallas Morning News are teaming up once again to offer high school students the opportunity to participate in a program teaching the ins and outs of doing journalism across diverse communities.Storytellers Without Borders, which is funded by a $150,000 grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, completed its first round of classes this past spring. Thirty students from schools across Dallas wrote about topics ranging from food deserts to the high costs of uniforms at girls-only schools. The deadline for applying for the second round of classes is Sept. 11. (See below for details.)In the first round, mentors and teachers from The News led sessions and guided the students on pitching, writing and editing their stories. Once completed, the stories were published on the program’s Medium page.Max Chow-Gillette, who is going into the 11th grade at the School for the Talented and Gifted at Yvonne A. Ewell Townview Center, wrote about magnet schools and their place in the Dallas Independent School District. He said he wrote about the issue because he had gone to magnets for most of his schooling and wanted to use his insight to report on their issues.“During the program, they just asked us to think about issues in our community that most strongly resonated with us — issues that we would hope to resolve or at least try to learn more about,” Chow-Gillette said.For the story, he researched old DISD case files, interviewed his school’s principal and even got the chance to ask Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings a question during a news conference that Storytellers Without Borders arranged.Along with teaching students about the process of journalism, the program helps students understand the importance of news and information and how they can help different communities.“That’s our primary mission as a news organization,” said Tom Huang, assistant managing editor for features and community engagement at The News. “So we want to help the students see the value in what we do. We want them to also learn how to connect with people who are not like them so that we help build bridges across Dallas.”  Continue reading...