The following story appears on Page 1 of the April 25, 2018 issue of the PPC. 

Every year, the Peace Pipe Chatter develops a theme issue, where the entirety of the newspaper is dedicated to a certain topic of discussion. In years past we have covered a broad variety of topics, such as food, how to effectively pay for college, and gender equality.

Developing a theme issue is a long process, often beginning months before the issue is released. The planning of the 2018 theme issue actually began in May 2017, when a group of PPC staff members brainstormed a list of ideas for potential themes. Among the many ideas discussed, the idea of diversity and race was included.

Months later in September 2017, the PPC staff revisited the theme issue and discussed even more ideas. We debated concerns and different viewpoints for some of the more controversial topics. After much discussion and debate, the staff decided on diversity and race for the 2018 theme issue.

“I feel like it is a more frequent topic in our school, and at least us doing this issue gets people talking about it, and opens students’ eyes to things they might not have seen before,” said Chaney Lehr, Editor-in-Chief.

Discussing diversity and race is an extremely broad topic that involves many different viewpoints, some of which can be a little extreme. In deciding how to do this, the staff viewed different articles from student news platforms that explained their approach towards such a controversial topic. The staff also discussed selections from Studs Terkel’s book, How Blacks and Whites Think and Feel about the American Obsession.

In October, the staff decided that the most effective way to discuss diversity and race was by asking students to respond to given prompts regarding this topic. The prompts were to be distributed to classrooms throughout both MCHS campuses. In order to generate ideas for potential prompts, PPC editors met with various student groups and one group of teachers. All groups shared many interesting perspectives.

From November to December, the staff spent weeks working together to develop the different prompts that would be included in the theme issue. There were many potential prompts involved throughout the discussions, but in the end the staff decided on eight prompts that would be distributed throughout the South and Central campuses.

“There are many different perspectives that people don’t even know about,” said Tommy Virgl, Editor-in-Chief. “You can judge someone on a first glance without even knowing what their home life is. It was just really interesting to read about other people’s lives, and these stories will definitely open up other people’s minds.”

At the beginning of 2018, approximately 3,000 copies of various prompts were given to English teachers at both South and Central Campuses, where students had the ability to write down their perspective on the particular prompt that they received.

In March, the PPC staff began to divide up the thousands of prompt responses in order to select those that would be best for the issue. It was rather difficult to read through thousands of prompts, as there were many differing opinions that needed to be taken into consideration.

“At times, the number of responses we received was overwhelming,” said Cassady Cundari, Opinion Editor. “We felt a responsibility to evaluate each response with the same impartiality and to represent all ideas, all backgrounds, and all perspectives equally.”

Finally, in April, the staff concluded their reading of the prompts and began to design them into the theme issue. After months of discussion and work, the PPC staff had designed and edited the paper into the 2018 theme issue, consisting entirely of the opinions and beliefs of the MCHS student body.

To read about why this topic was chosen, see this article.