McHenry MessengerM
Taking their seats
Lily Adams Editor-in-Chief
MCHS American Studies classes host annual Chautauqua just before Thanksgiving break
During this time, students give speeches on various topics against other students with an opposing view They then answer questions about them, and the audience votes In between speeches, students have the opportunity to perform different skits, as their character But while this day long event is meant to be fun, lots of work went into it
“There's a lot of assessments,” said Hauber “It's very time consuming but you get to know your character well, It did help in the end,”
Students spend their school day in the auditorium for this project They get points for both participating in the speeches and answering questions The format is made so that every student either on stage or in the audience gets the chance to perform
Dressed as their character for Chautauqua, junior Onyx Haak enters the Upper Campus auditorium They take their seat in the dimly lit space, anticipating the speeches and skits they will see today The first bell of the day has rung, Chautauqua has begun Chautauqua is an event held by the junior American Studies classes at MCHS American Studies is a course that
combines history and English to engage students and further their education through various projects and presentations This main presentation bring in several incoming juniors to the class
“I decided to join American Studies because I heard about Chautauqua and I wanted to participate,” said junior Brooklyn Hauber
“Chautauqua is a celebration that we have every November,” says English teacher Brittany Probst “It involves students acting as different characters
Ready or not
coming together in a formal setting to discuss different social/political issues from different perspectives ”
Chautauqua is one of the class’s main projects Working for the whole first semester, students pick a celebrity or historical figure and do research in order to “become them ”
“It's a way to talk about current day issues but also bringing in historical figures, to get students to learn about people of the past, and then how that's relevant today,” said social studies teacher Cody Freund
“We do Chautauqua as an exercise to get the students thinking from other perspectives about what's happening in society and the impact that it has on different people,” Probst says Even though it can be hard work, students feel the rewards and benefits they put into the project, especially because they have a real audience to perform in front of Other social science classes often go to see the performances during their class period
“I'm excited to see people’s skits and all the stuff in between,” said Haak
Results from the Illinois Assessment of Readiness show that MCHS’s test scores dropped around 25% compared to last year
A student walks into their math class feeling anxious for their test Even though they studied and tried different methods to prepare, they start to feel as if they are not going to pass Once the teacher put the grades in the grade book, they saw that they got a 64% Some of the other students in the same course didn't do well either After all that studying, they feel like they are no longer prepared for the next unit
McHenry Community High School’s test scores have recently taken a drop According to the Illinois Assessment of
Readiness, the school’s reading and math scores have gone down about 25%
McHenry High School Upper Campus principal Jeff Prickett said, “When we have early release on Wednesdays, the teachers meet to look at data and scores to try to meet kids where they are at and provide extra support ”
Math and reading scores have been unpredictable for the past couple years
“There’s pockets of where scores went up,” said Prickett “And there’s pockets of when scores went down
We’ve been stagnant the last few years I still think that scores are not where they were pre-pandemic ” The scores may be down more than before, but it only gives room to improve and to see what’s going on
“I’m not happy with the scores but it drives me to want to do better To dig deeper and it’s obviously not going to be an overnight fix, and we’re taking action right now,” said Prickett Seeing these test scores can worry the public and can give MCHS a bad name for their scores
“This can be construed as a negative to the public It doesn’t mean that the kids can’t do math or read at grade level for a varying number of reasons,” said Prickett A student walks into a tutoring session for math Later into the session, they have a better understanding about math and feel more confident going into their next test New methods of learning and taking in the information helped them get a higher test grade than ever
According to the Illinois Assessment of Readiness show that MCHS's test scores dropped around 25% on both math and reading tests |
Photo by: Grace Bellavia
American Studies hosts their annual Chautauqua in the Upper Campus auditorium on Nov 21 Junior, Devin Elbert spoke as LeBron James about gun violence in America | Photo by Rose Wenckebach
Ffion Curtain Online Managing Editor
Opinion | Politics shouldn’t tarnish relationships
In light of the 2024 general election, it seems that people’s political opinions are affecting their friendships a lot more than they should
Michalina Sotka Print Managing Editor
As of this year’s election, the issue of whether or not political opinions should affect relationships has come into question for lots of people
Whether people had voted red or blue on Nov 5, people are burning bridges between them and their friends all on the basis of politics This isn’t how it should be – politics aren’t meant to divide people
The two-party political system that America goes by today has a major flaw – it forces voters to choose between the lesser of two evils, if they so choose to vote This is one of the many reasons why politics are so polarizing to this country – and to people’s relationships
When people do preserve their relationships even if they have opposite stances, these topics are often swept under the rug This often causes people to explode or act purely on emotion when they get into political disagreements with their friends These explosions cause people to resent each other, or simply just burn the bridge between one another
“I have friends that are for one political view, and their spouse is a part of another political view,” says Jon Niemic, social science teacher at MCHS “They've even said, there's certain topics that they just avoid I don’t think that’s healthy Because when you avoid things and you sweep things under the rug or topics or conversations, that's when democracy doesn't work ”
Another reason why politics affect relationships so much is due to the stereotypes placed on people when their political stance is made known People assume that most Republicans
are hillbillies with stubborn opinions, and people assume that most Democrats are too young to have a say This prevents people from even approaching each other if they know they don’t align politically
According to Pew Research Center, “Many Republicans and Democrats associate negative characteristics with members of the other party – and positive traits with their own But the specific criticisms Democrats and Republicans have of each other vary And on several of these traits, a majority of partisans say Republicans and Democrats aren’t much different
from the public as a whole ” If people were simply more objective with their political thinking, people of different parties may still not be able to agree, but essentially to agree to disagree As long as everyone is able to form an informed opinion, it’s often easy to coexist among people with different sides
“Today, 92% of Republicans are to the right of the median Democrat, and 94% of Democrats are to the left of the median Republican,” once again, according to Pew Research Center
This divide has only grown because of people’s inability to not let their
Dominic Burnett Puzzlemaster
TheMcHenryMessengerisMcHenryCommunityHigh School’sstudent-writtenand-editednewspaper Launchedin2019,TheMcHenryMessengeristhe student-runandstudent-editedschoolnewspaperat McHenryHighSchoolinMcHenry,Illinois
Studentjournalistshavetherighttoexercisefreedomof speechandthepressinhighschoolmedia The McHenryMessengerbenefitsfromtheserights Wehope tousethisplatformtoinformandengagethestudents andstaffofMcHenryHighSchoolaswellasitsbroader community
Asastudent-drivenpublication itisimportanttous thatwerepresenteverygroupwithinbothcampusesas wellasthebroaderMcHenrycommunity providinga platformforthemtotelltheirstories Weintendto provideaccesstoobjective,relevantinformationthat theyneedtoknow
political affiliations affect their relationships By feeding into the stereotypes of the parties, people who let their political opinions negatively affect their relationships are only increasing the divide
Instead of wishing the other party not to talk, people of opposing views should be hearing each other, even if they don’t agree This is what allows people to formulate informed opinions, and when they are able to share these informed opinions without fear of friendships ending, they not only improve their own opinions, but the opinions of others as well
Photo by: Berenice Santiago
Beth Brackmann Puzzlemaster
CARTOON S