Penn-Trafford’s media literacy class has been evolving to adopt a more modern curriculum. Although the recent addition of social media has added a new focus to the course, it has retained the event-planning objectives of prior years. 

   Media Interns (students in the class who also work in the media center) are expected to coordinate several school events throughout the year; trunk or treat, day of play and adopt a veteran have each taken weeks to schedule. 

     “Emailing teachers, gathering volunteers and donations. It’s a lot of reaching out to people,” said junior intern Kyla Lowry. 

   The course stresses student connection to the high school and its staff, as opposed to traditional methods of lectures and textbooks. Senior intern Mason Tosadori said, “[the class] puts you in the experiences which teach you.”

   This year, this connection has extended online with the P-T Instagram page. 

   “We have been event planning, but also [learning] how to interpret data from Instagram, profile views, shares, likes, and comments,” said Media Center attendant Joshua Bujakowski. “The social media aspect is big and getting bigger.” 

   Students are now expected to establish a P-T brand of professionalism in interactions over email or interpersonal conversations.

     “How do we want to represent our school on social media, what platform is this designed for, who our audience is,” are some of the questions Brittney Falk, English teacher and the course instructor, asks her students to consider while promoting events. 

   Interns are also responsible for smaller assignments including decorating the media center or constructing bulletin boards to passively inform students in the hallways; all classwork is designed to cultivate time-management and organizational skills within students. 

    Falk said she hopes students will consider how they are portraying themselves in social interactions. “How to be professional and a teenager,” is one objective she said she wants interns to come to understand.