After trips to Target and hesitant introductions when they arrived, cherubs spent their evening working on their first assignment. For Logan Szymanski of Edwardsville, Illinois, the real shock came a few days later: when it was time for instructor feedback.
“The first time I saw feedback, there were more notes than my original writing,” Szymanski said. “What did I do? Is this the worst story I’ve ever written?”
Cherubs, like David Singer of Rye, New York, often spent one-on-one instructor meetings on Saturdays going over comments on stories from that week.
“The feedback was a bit harsh, but it was also constructive and when we went over it in our meetings, it was helpful,” Singer said. “My instructor would say this is how you can improve.”
Sienna Tolani of New York noticed her instructor comments often focused on small details like Associated Press style, and even including the age of her sources.
Cherubs in instructor John Kupetz’s group received handwritten feedback on their stories in a script they said was hard to read.
“We did have to use ChatGPT to translate John Kupetz’s handwriting. The first time it translated to Arabic, but the second time it translated to English and it was really accurate,” Leo Beirne of New York said.
Like Singer, Beirne met with his instructor to go over the feedback. It was clear that Kupetz spent a lot of time on each paper, even if it was a short 200 word assignment, Beirne said.
“One of the reasons that I came here was because of the criticism of your journalism work,” Szymanski said. “There were a lot of funny comments where I look back and see I definitely made a mistake. But it’s all just from professionals that are trying to make you better.”
