English teacher Jarrett Chapin wanted his students to start producing what he calls "high-stakes writing"— factual writing published somewhere open to public readership.
Sounds a lot like a newspaper. It's been eight years since Lahainaluna High School released a school newspaper, the last publication being Ka Leo Luna, which was published in 2017.
This school year, Chapin is teaching a news writing class. He's also created an online news site, with some history, the name of the school's original newspaper, Ka Lama Hawaiʻi.
"This is a way of talking about tradition, and it's a pedagogical strategy to try to get the student interested in literacy by showing how it has real-world consequences," he said.
Ka Lama Hawaiʻi, created in 1834, was the first newspaper released in Hawaiʻi and west of the Rockies. It was initially published in the Hawaiian language by students at Lahainaluna Seminary, where missionaries taught them.
The newspaper, which had a 9-by-11-inch layout, was not only read by students at school but throughout the Hawaiian Kingdom — at a time when Hawaiians rapidly embraced literacy.
Some notable school figures in the mid-1830s were the late Hawaiian scholar and royal adviser David Malo, who was part of the first graduating class and wrote about the antiquities; and the late Hawaiian historian and scholar Samuel Kamakau, who wrote a series of letters that would later become a landmark text in Hawaiian history.
The newspaper was short-lived, with its last publication in 1841. It most likely stopped printing due to the decline of the Hawaiian language and the changing political and social landscape in Hawaiʻi.
"Lahainaluna has been at the center of Hawaiian literacy since the beginning of the kingdom, and I don't think people are talking about it enough," Chapin said. "Bringing back the paper's name is a no-brainer."
Although Chapin doesn't have a professional background in journalism, his passion for writing gave him the confidence to build a curriculum from scratch.
He read books on news writing and storytelling, including but not limited to René Cappon's "The Associated Press Guide to News Writing," and "Telling True Stories: A Nonfiction Writers' Guide from the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University" by Mark Kramer and Wendy Call.
He taught at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, for about a decade and worked with writers at the undergraduate and graduate levels. He also has publishing experience at the Hall Institute of Public Policy.
Chapin said he wanted to revive the student newspaper because he noticed a lack of media literacy in a generation that mostly gets their information on social media.
As an exercise, Chapin assigns his students to bring a few news articles every Monday to identify any bias.
Like other newspapers, students go through a rigorous writing and editing process. Students are tasked with researching the topics they're writing about, interviewing students on campus, crafting their stories, and more.
In the mid-1830s, students at Lahainaluna Seminary published weekly, running articles about Christianity and featuring animals like horses and hyenas.
Now, students at Lahainaluna High publish on their online newspaper monthly — if they make their deadlines, according to Chapin.
The online newspaper is published at least once a month, and nine students are enrolled in the class. So far, students have written about math proficiency rates, parking issues, and teacher shortages.
Sophomore Kela Jimenez recently covered the student council elections. She said the class helped improve her communication, writing, and editing skills.
"I found that it can be fun and that it is a little stressful," she said. "I just feel like that's an elective thing, and it's helped me manage my time better since there's more work to do."
She said reporting her election article underscored the importance of media literacy. She added that the people she interviewed didn't know what was happening.
"Media literacy is super important because you need to know this information and be able to be critical about it and reflect on it," she said. "There's definitely an issue with that among people in this generation."
Sophomore Jersea Borneman wrote about the rising frustrations among students accessing parking at their school campus. She said she struggled with finding people who wanted to be interviewed and juggling her time management.
She also said she likes meeting new people during her interviews and giving her student body a voice.
"It's really great that we actually get to give a voice to kids on our campus and their opinion," she said. "When they have problems, we can write about it, and hopefully something will be done."
Although Borneman and Jimenez do not see themselves going into journalism, they said they can bring those life skills into adulthood.
For Jarrett Chapin, that's all he wants for his students. He hopes the program will continue to grow.
"As kids are reading more and more of their peers' stories and admiring the literacy of their peers, I hope that there's more drive across all demographics to write excellent that is clear, factual, and helpful."
