Me on the cover of the magazine of New Youth Connections

This is our current issue-- Criminal Justice

-Vocabulary -

In my Internship, my duty was to write stories; here are the words I learned to improve my writing and basic terms I must know while writing stories:

Theme: Is why you are writing the story: the point of the story, the message.

Plot: Is what happens: This, and then that, and then this, and then that.

Active Voice: In an active sentence, the subject is doing the action.
For example:
Steve loves Amy. Steve is the subject, and he is doing the action: he loves Amy, the subject.
Here's another example:
Melissa told me about it. Melissa the subject of the sentence, is doing the action of telling.

Passive Voice: In a passive voice the target of the action gets promoted to the subject position. Instead of saying, "Steve loves Amy," a passive sentence would say:
Amy is loved by Steve. The subject of the sentence becomes Amy,but she isn't doing anything. Rather, she is just the recipient of Steve's love. The focus of the sentence has changed from Steve to Amy.
Tip: When writing a story is better to write active voice sentences because it makes it easier for the reader of the story.

Transition: A transition can be a single word, a phrase, a sentence, or a entire paragraph. In each case it serves the same purpose: to signal to the reader that you are moving from one idea, argument, or moment in time to another.
Tip: This helps the reader anticipate or comprehend the new information that you're about to present.
Examples of transitions words: However, but; while, then, after, etc.

Sentence Fragment: It fails to be a sentence in the sense that it cannot stand by itself. It does not contain even one independent clause. In less technical terms, you might say that every sentence should contain a verb and a point. (In other words, it should express a complete thought.) If it's missing either or both, it's not a sentence.

For example: While writing a story. This leaves us hanging, because we need to know the complete thought. While writing the story... what?

The nutgraf: The nutgraf, or thesis statement, tells the reader what the story is about. It's usually a single paragraph near the top of your story.

New Youth Connections Website

Visit this website to find true stories wrote it by teens at Youth Communications

Midpoint Reflection

My Internship has been great. I didn't have expectations about my internship but I love it. I discover something about myself. I like to write to express my stories and let others read them. By the way, I love the place, we mostly work individually, but there are also times in which we work as a team. It is great to get along with co-workers and work with great people as in my internship the product of a team work are the magazines that comes out each month.
My internship is kind of the school but It is a totally different environment. For example, my mentor is like my teacher. She gives me instructions of what to do and assigns me a task. Sh explains to me when I don't understand. She teaches me new skills and its a great person. My co-workers are like my classmates. Sometimes we work in teams, we get along well and together we do a good job and finish our job.
I also learned some skills. I have become a better typist since I do a lot of witting and type it in the computer. I learned how to do interviews by phone and in person. I am improving my networking skills and I am sure that all these skills are key of success.
My mentor and I talked all the time and share thoughts. I am glad to have Marie as my mentor. She listens to me, we share thoughts about the issues we are working on or reactions about something that we read related to the current issue. Like I said I get along well with my co-workers, I learn from them and we share experiences.
I have grown as a result of interacting with adults, simply as it's different. I have a job to do, which I must finish because I have deadlines. It is like a job in which my mentor is my boss and I am growing because I have to be mature and take responsibility of my work.
My challenges have been to write my personal stories and sometimes to finish my articles. I overcame them by the help of my mentor. She offered me her support and guide me to the right path to get all those things done.
I love my schedule. I think this semester is great since I am going to my internship. It taught me to manage my time. I stick at my schedule and keeps me really busy! Even though, sometimes I feel stressed out because of school work, college now and internship I learned that it is important to have a schedule to get all things done and also have time to rest. Now I am used to this schedule and I feel it is like college.
In the next couple of weeks my goals are to write as many stories I can, write a reported story for the next issue (Criminal justice) do interviews, keep learning new things and meet new people.
I learn that New York City has a lot of great things to see. I learn a little more about it when I have trips at my internship in which we go to interview people. For example, yesterday we went to interview Donna Lieberman,Executive Director of New York Civil Liberties Union and I got to see a beautiful view from the 19th floor of the building and I saw the different helicopters ports located by wall street.

Four weeks into internship

Part One 3/25/10

I am a writer at New Youth Connection. New Youth Connection writes magazine written by teens and for teens. My common tasks are (1) Write a story. (2) Read information. (3) Do an interview. (4) Participate in discussions. (5) Attend to meetings. My mentor is patient, understandable, nice, good listener, smart, kind, a very good person...
I say that she is nice because every day when I come into the office always smiles and greets me. She is available and always answers my questions. And she is a good boss- I am learning!

In the past three weeks something that mostly stood up for me was seeing my article almost ready to be publish! I felt really excited and proud to be part of the next issue of the magazine to let others learn from it. Also when I had a good time interviewing people on th street by Penn Station.

I also have some challenge on my internship. The most challenging part on my internship is to have an idea of what to write about. That is the most challenging because sometimes I don't know how to start, but once I know what to write about the task is easy.

Part Two:

My internship is located at 224 W. 29th St.- 2nd Floor, New York, NY. Therefore, from Monday- Wednesday I leave school at 11:30 to arrive at my internship at 12:35 and leave my internship at 4:35pm, this means that I work three days a week, four hours each day so, I mostly arrive home at 5:20 pm. My mentor's name is Marie Glancy - Editor from New Youth Connections. She always signs my time sheet and makes sure I make up all my hours.

This past two weeks have been a little different from the first two in the way I am no longer in rush to finish my articles since the deadline already past, now I have a break.

Part Two

Questions about my internship...
Who have the ideas to make the magazine of New Youth Connection be so cool and interesting?
How much does it take to make the New Youth Connection magazine for each month?
What would it be to be the editor for all the stories?

Nicole