Personal Essay: The Little Gray Notebook
When I first walked into the ODYSSEY Media Group Intro to Journalism class, I didn’t have a clue what journalism was or what it would come to mean to me. All I had was my weatherbeaten backpack, a glitchy school computer, and a little gray notebook.
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I’ve since wondered how exactly I came to own this notebook. I have no memory of buying it, nor of receiving it as a gift. But, having not purchased any normal composition notebooks before the first day of school, this little gray notebook was all I had to catalog my experience in the ODYSSEY, Clarke Central High School’s student news publication. Thus, in a small, untidy scrawl, I christened the notebook “Journalism ODYSSEY Notebook.”
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During my first year in the program, the notebook stayed very much true to its name. I used its pages liberally, leaving large swathes of space on each page despite the sheer quantity of content we discussed. In the first semester, our adviser, David Ragsdale, and senior leaders in the class taught us everything there was to know about journalism, from interviewing to beats to design to social media and the many things in between. I heard what they said and duly wrote it down, but as the notebook’s half-empty pages showed, I didn’t yet understand it.
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That all changed when I attended the Georgia Scholastic Press Association’s winter conference in early 2022. I attended sessions on podcasting, solutions journalism, and sports writing, finding myself immersed in things that I cared about. As a result, my notebook filled up. I found myself raising my hand in the sports writing discussion, contributing to the discussion in an active and engaged manner. When I arrived home that day, 10 whole pages of the notebook were full of ideas, concepts, and lessons I was eager to implement into my work. This proved to be a turning point for my journalistic experience.
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In the following weeks, I applied for the Sports Editor position on staff, and at the end of the year, I’d gotten it. In my first semester as a sophomore editor, I was publishing articles on a nearly weekly basis, more than most members of staff. Simultaneously, I was learning how to manage a staff of my own, editing my staffers work and growing as a leader. The margins in my notebook grew ever smaller as I crammed knowledge into its pages. I took the notebook on interviews, scribbling follow ups and story concepts, while also using it to research stakeholders. The little gray notebook became synonymous with my approach to journalism.
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At the end of sophomore year, I applied for a Leadership Team position, and got it, serving as the Lead Copy Editor – below only the Managing Editor and Editors-in-Chief. As an editor and leader in the class, my notebook was no longer just mine, but it was a resource I used to benefit others. I flipped through pages to teach a staffer review writing and refreshed myself on good editing before diving into a story. The notebook transcended my writing as my fingers turned the cream-colored pages to pass information onto the next generation of writers.
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Amidst my time with the ODYSSEY, I began to explore journalism in other places. Twice, the little gray notebook traveled with me to New York City – once to study Immigration Law, Culture, and Journalism with The School of the New York Times, once to study design concepts under the tutelage of Pacemaker-winning adviser Jenny Dial Creech with the Columbia Scholastic Press Association. I recorded the lessons from each class, my notebook a little fuller and my journalism a little better. I also undertook an internship with a local newspaper, The Oconee Enterprise, where I wrote over half a dozen sports stories throughout the summer. When I interviewed former University of Georgia and U.S. Olympic swim team coach Jack Bauerle at his patio table, my little gray notebook was taking stock of every word he said. That same story would be featured at the top of the paper’s sports section the following week.
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Now, it’s with regret that I say my little gray notebook is running out of pages. More than halfway through my junior year, I’m trying to save the last pages for the end of my high school career because, for me, this little gray notebook represents so much more than it is – the notebook is my high school journalism. It’s been with me from the second I joined the ODYSSEY to the moment I’m typing this essay, playing an integral role in every edit, every word, every infinitesimally small action I do for my journalistic work.
And then, when I graduate high school and start my journalistic work over again, I’ll buy a new little gray notebook – preferably not in German – and see where it takes me.
