Anjali Kakarla
Writer, Reporter, Editor-in-Chief
Feature
An Athlete's ACL Tear
Seeing my teammate Jillian Boynton suffer an ACL tear and a months-long recovery process was difficult. However, I didn't understand the full magnitude of Jill's story until I sat down to interview her. The half an hour interview I had planned for turned into over an hour. Jill emphasized how sports had been her whole life until the injury. "It felt like part of my identity was gone," Boynton said.
Awards:
- Michigan Interscholastic Press Association: 1st place, Newswriting, Informative Feature
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From Bedrooms To Classrooms
I co-wrote this article with Ailish Kilbride on how the introduction of online learning platforms has drastically changed education at CHS. In our interview with CHS Dean Marci Tuzinsky, we uncovered how the implementation of the learning platform Schoology began during the 2020-21 school year. “It was like starting a whole new school – we didn’t know what problems to anticipate," Dean Tuzinsky said.
Tiny Love Stories
When I read the story package "Tiny Love Stories" on the New York Times website, I knew it would be a great addition to The Communicator. Fellow Communicator journalist, Serena O'Brien and I wrote five 100-word storied about pockets of love within the CHS community and published this piece on Valentine's Day.
Turning Pain Into Purpose
The theme for the second edition of The Communicator magazine my freshman year was "Lost and Found." Although I was terrified, I pitched the idea of writing a story about Kristin Roberts a mother who had lost her son Miles to suicide and created a foundation aimed at reducing the stigma around mental health in her son's honor. The story idea was green lighted and it was one of the most powerful interviews I have ever been a part of.
SAT Stress
As the pandemic shut down standardized testing sites across the country, many colleges implemented a "test-optional" policy. This new approach by institutions across the country left students in a state of confusion. Could colleges hold not sending in a score against an applicant? How could students determine which score was high enough to send to a college? Do colleges consider a students income level and access to SAT prep courses when evaluating their score? I interviewed three students and CHS counselor Brian Williams to hear their opinions on this controversial policy.
Awards:
- Michigan Interscholastic Press Association: 1st place, Newswriting, In-depth Feature
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More Than Money
With so many high schoolers working at various part-time jobs, I thought it would be interesting to talk to working CHS students about how their job has impacted them and how they are able to balance a job on top of their other responsibilities. One of the students I interviewed, Rosie Mellor, discussed how her job at Spun (a local yarn store) has helped her face her social anxiety. For this article I also went to the interviewees' places of work to take pictures of them and observe them at work.
Healthcare Workers In The Era of Covid-19
For my very first article, Edition 1 of my freshman year, I wrote about two healthcare workers: Janet Rojo, a surgery nurse anesthesiologist who was transferred to a Covid-19 ICU in Detroit; and Jim Salisbury an occupational therapist who went from assisting patients recovering from elective surgeries to helping patients convalescing from Covid-19. The stories of adaptability and perseverance they told were inspiring to me as an aspiring physician.
Awards:
- Michigan Interscholastic Press Association: 3rd place, Newswriting, In-depth Feature
Figuring It Out
The class of 2024 went from their last full year of school as seventh graders, straight to sophomore year of high school. With such an integral time of life spent in the virtual classroom, the impacts were lasting. Students in the class of 2024 described struggling to connect with teachers through a screen and difficulty with making friends online. “I’m just trying to get back into the social aspect [of school],” Eddins said. “Everyone has their groups and I’m just trying to find my little group.”
Awards:
- Michigan Interscholastic Press Association: 2nd place, Newswriting, In-depth Feature
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Restaurant Profile: Miss Kim
For Edition 3 of The Communicator, the theme was food. Along with fellow Communicator journalist Ailish Kilbride, I walked across the street from Community and into Kerrytown Market's Miss Kim. During an interview, Miss Kim owner Ji Hye Kim described her path from working in hospital management to opening her own restaurant.
A New Kind of Fresh
For Edition 3 of the Communicator, the food edition, I wanted to learn more about where the food students eat in the CHS cafeteria comes from. To find out more, I interviewed Mike DeVries, the director of food service at Ann Arbor Public Schools and Jack Gould, a sous chef working in the CHS kitchen. Gould described the impact lunch people had on his life and the impact he hopes to have on each kid that walks through the CHS kitchen.