Lake Charles Charter Academy English teacher Michelle Myers has turned her passion for building relationships with her students into an empowering new digital media class that has created a sense of community among her eighth-graders.

A high-school credit course, the digital media class initially began as a way to create a digital campus newspaper, but has now morphed into producing an accompanying podcast. Their next venture will be creating YouTube videos.

“It just became so much more than creating articles each week,” teacher Michelle Myers said. “Their writing has become so much better and one of the things we like the best is that we started a story and every week we add to it and other students are taking notice.”

She said her students cover on-campus events each week and write opinion pieces of community interest for their digital newspaper, The LCCA Observer.

Myers said they chose Observer as their newspaper’s name because ultimately the students are observing what is going on around them and reporting on it.

“Great happens here,” Myers said. “That is our theme and our class catchphrase.”

Amiah Dugas said they each receive two writing assignments weekly — a news piece and an opinion piece.

“For the opinion piece, we can basically write about what interests us, but we have to balance it out with both sides,” Dugas said. “The other one is writing about school events, like what’s going to be happening.”

Khloe Wolfe said her favorite opinion piece she’s written so far happens to be her first one.

“I wrote about animal euthanasia and animal shelters and I care very deeply about that so it was fun to write,” she said. “It has stuck with me.”

Wolfe said she sometimes struggles initially with picking her opinion piece topics, “but once you get it, it gets easier from there.”

Myers said she allows the students to write opinion pieces on subjects that interest them because she wants the assignment to be fun for them.

“I don’t want them to feel like they come to class every day and they’re being forced to write about something they don’t want,” she said. “It’s kind of a trade off, you pick something you want to write about so you’re engaged and you’re invested and you’re writing and then I might slip in this no-so-fun necessarily job like compiling the birthday list or what’s going on in the cafeteria — some of the assignments that are not so great but balance out the paper.”

Carlos Este-McDonald said his first newspaper article was a review of the various French fries at area restaurants and he  polled his classmates on their top picks.

“He was so psyched and he specifically commented on the crunchiness and the saltiness,” Myers said.

“I already kind of had a taste for fries and I was like, ‘Hopefully, these fries are as good as this other place’s fries,’ but then I was like, ‘Well, these are alright, and then these are alright,’ ” he said. “But I wasn’t just taking my own interests into account, I was taking a poll on what others liked. I went around the school and asked others about their favorite fries.”

Dugas admits she initially joined the class to be able to be around Myers.

“I didn’t even know what was going to be expected but it’s a very relaxed class and not as difficult as some might think it would be,” Dugas said. “It’s very fun.”

Myers said the class size of six was intentional because it has allowed the classmates to form a tight bond.

“We trust each other and we’ve gone through a little bit of struggle but we figured it out and we’ve built these relationships and we wouldn’t want to change any of it,” Myers said.

The class meets Monday-Friday from 11:07 a.m. to 12:16 p.m. On Fridays, that time is often extended into a “working pizza lunch hour” to get their next newspaper edition finalized.

Aside from “pizza Fridays,” Damone Scott II said his favorite part of the class has been the launch of the podcasts.

“It’s been fun to talk to people,” Scott said. “Our first podcast was kind of awkward but we figured it out.”

So far, the class has produced 13 podcasts, interviewing such community leaders as Lake Charles Mayor Nic Hunter and Judge Gene Thibodeaux.

“For me, personally, it’s helped me get out of my comfort zone,” Dugas said.

The students compile the list of interview questions for their guests themselves, take turns asking them on air, read the opening and closing credits and help with the sound engineering.

Myers handles the editing but said she welcomes bloopers.

“Bloopers are actually better,” Myers said. “I like that we don’t take ourselves too seriously. We have a lot of bloopers, but that’s OK, that’s us and now we’ve got memories”

Wolfe said the class has shown her how important it is to have relationships with the people around her.

“If we were not friends and we were always fighting, this class would not be very fun,” Wolfe said.

“She’s right,” Myers added. “We wouldn’t have been able to create what we created; our products are representative of the relationships we’ve built. It’s obvious we do well together because our paper is good, it’s obvious because our podcasts are good. Everything comes from our ability to make these relationships with each other.”

Cailee Jones said she’s hopeful that when she enters high school, a similar course will be available to further hone the skills she’s learned this year.

“But my favorite part is the bonds we’ve created,” Jones said. “The bonds that we’ve shared have been really special.”

Wolfe said the class often has the same kind of atmosphere as what students experience at recess.

“We have so much fun in here, and we trust each other and we’re always kind to each other. If you need to vent, you can do it here,” Wolfe said, admitting the classmates knew of each other before the course but developed friendships through their assignments.

“They were in the same school, some of them had the same courses, but none of them were super close,” Myers said. “I always say we’re like the ‘Bad News Bears’ of the reporting field because no one knew each other when we came in, we just kind of learned as we would go and worked through our mistakes and kept going.”

Myers said she has applied for a Drew Grant that would allow the class to purchase a mixing board, better computer software, a newer laptop and a green screen for their YouTube videos.

“There are things coming, hopefully, that will just keep increasing our creativity,” Myers said.

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Online: www.lccaobserver.com