Walnut Hills High SchoolVolume CIX, Issue 11 March 13, 2015

Allie Berding, ‘16Whitney Bronson, ‘16Tony Heim, ‘15Darien Jackson, ‘15Tara Sales, ‘17Brad Williams, ‘15

In its first year, the mock trial team has advanced to the state fi-nal. In order to advance, members must win the case given to them that they argue at competitions. Each member is given a role in the court in which they are required to present and argue their case. The roles are plaintiff and defense at-torneys, plaintiff and defense wit-nesses, plaintiff’s bailiff and defense timekeeper. Kamala Nelson, ‘17 and Tasia Kieffer, ‘17 won best plaintiff and best defense, respec-tively, at the regional competition in Oxford, OH.

How are you preparing for state?KN: We are looking at our score sheets that we get after each com-petition.TK: We are working on our weak points and strong points and see-ing how we can improve.

What are you most nervous about?TK: I’m not nervous at this point,.It’s second nature to me. It’s so rare for a first year team to have come this far in the first place.KN: We’ve done it so many times. We got a lot of confidence from regionals. The judge told our at-

Walnut Hills Eagles soar to state

torney we were the best team he’s ever seen.

Do you have any pre-competi-tion rituals?TK: I get my nails done the night before.KN: I straighten my hair.

As a team, how close are you guys?KN: We spend so much time to-gether, so we are very close.TK: The team is so small we have to like each other, but we still ar-gue.

Say you win state, where do you go from there?TK: To nationals in Washington, D.C. The Mock Trial Association pays for you to go and you also get paid to be there. KN: You also get an entire new case and you must argue everything on-the-spot.

What motivated you to join mock trial?TK: We know people who do it at other schools.KN: “Law and Order: SVU”

As sophomores, how does it feel to have gone so far and to be competing against upperclass-men from all around the city?TK: It’s not intimidating. If you know what your case is you don’t get scared of other people at all.

Anderson competes in the long jump, triple jump and 200-meter dash. However, she said that she will do any other event that her coach needs her to participate in. An-derson’s favorite things about competing at state are being able to bond with her teammates and coach and having the opportunity to experience these things as a freshman.

Becker set a personal goal for herself at the begin-ning of the swim season: qualify for state. Becker met that goal by going to state for the first time, swimming the 500 freestyle. At state she swam a time of 5:08.47 seconds, but her fastest time was 5:05.40 seconds at dis-tricts. Becker said, “I was really excited to go to state. It was a goal of mine to qualify for the meet this year, and it felt great to achieve that goal.”

For the last three seasons, Garry has been a fixture at the state swimming meet in Canton, OH. Garry has dominated the 100 breaststroke, capturing the Eastern Cincinnati Conference’s fastest time in all three years of its existence. Each year she has improved, moving from 24th place her sophomore year to 12th place this year. She has committed to The Ohio State University, where she will walk on the swim team.

Hassel did numerous workouts and trainings in order to try to qualify for state. She swam every day for the past five months, lifted weights and worked out to have, according to her, “an extra edge over people who swam for training.” Hassel swam the 100 butterfly with a swim time of 57.08 seconds. This was Hassel’s second time going to state, plac-ing 12th her junior year and 14th this year.

TaiLynn Jones, '18 competes in the long jump, triple jump, hurdles and relays. Jones has the sixth longest jump in the state of Ohio at 17.25 feet. Her favorite thing about state was being able to compete in the long jump and also being able to place at states. She has hopes of being able to run track in college.

Cooper Keener, '16 reached a career milestone of go-ing to state two years in a row. As a sophomore, Keener qualified for state in the 100 backstroke and came in 15th place. This year he returned and came in 24th. Keener is getting multiple Division One looks from colleges such as The Ohio State University, the University of Florida, University of North Carolina, University of Northern Las Vegas and University of the Pacific.

Tasia Kieffer, ‘17 (left) and Kamala Nelson, ‘17, winners of the regional mock trial competition, are in prepation for state on March 12 and 13. Kieffer and Nelson are accompanied by Ananya Cherukuri, ‘17, Natalie Groeber, ‘17, Swede Moorman, ‘16, Kayla Murrell, ‘17, SENIOR Ashley Robinson, Lia Shapiro, ‘18, Amilcar Torres, ‘18 and English teacher and club advisor Jerome Brady. The team of regional champions will compete at The Ohio State University.

JULIAN SHOCKLEY/CHATTERBOX

Jeresa Anderson, ‘18Track & Field

Casey Becker, ‘16Swimming

SENIOR Brookley GarrySwimming

SENIOR Keira HasselSwimming

TaiLynn Jones, ‘18 Track & Field

Cooper Keener, ‘16Swimming

Mock Trial

Viewpoints

The pros and cons of connectivity

The Chatterbox Editorial Board

Karinne Hill, Managing Editor Grace Hill, Design Managing EditorAlex Persiani, Photography Editor Neriya Servant, Business Manager Oliver Olberding, Online Manager

The Chatterbox has been guaran-teed the right of freedom of the press through the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. The administration of Walnut Hills High School is thus bound to support and protect the Chatterbox’s inalienable rights as a free press. As an integral part of the Walnut Hills High School community, the Chatterbox has the responsibility to report in the most comprehensive and objective manner possible. Students, parents, faculty, and administrators are

encouraged to use this publication as a forum to express any ideas or con-cerns, whether they be personal or of local, national, or international scope. Journalists are required to work under established guidelines. Inva-sion of privacy as a means of news gathering is prohibited. Articles found to be discriminatory, libelous, or unnecessarily obscene (as determined by the editors or the advisor) will not be published. Finally, journalists are granted the right to keep private the name of a source from whom they

received information with the under-standing that the source was to remain anonymous. The role of the newspaper advisor will be to provide counsel and criticism pertaining to the newspaper’s content and production. Although both the advisor and the administra-tion hold certain powers regarding the Chatterbox, both must respect the paper’s autonomy. No student shall be prevented from joining the staff on the basis of sex, race, creed or national origin.

SARAH DAVIDOFF, ‘13

Aisling Grueninger, Circulation ManagerTony Heim, Section Editor RepresentativeAllie Berding, News EditorSamantha Gerwe-Perkins, Advisor Dawn Wolfe, Advisor

Zoe Cheng and Celeste Kearney, Editors-in-Chief

The Chatterbox Policy Statement

Avery Samuels, ‘16

Recently in the news, there have been many articles written and studies conducted that suggest social media has a negative impact on self esteem. For example, Nanyang Techno-logical University, Bradley University and the University of Missouri Columbia recently re-leased findings from a social experiment they jointly conducted that deem Facebook to be a depressant, leaving the user feeling inadequate and inferior compared to the people with whom they interact on social media. This is understandable, in a way. Facebook, like many other social media outlets, is under-stood to be a personal broadcasting service. Usually this means that the only news people post to their social media accounts is positive. For some, to go on social media and to see what supposedly wonderful lives their friends seem to be leading is depressing. However, social media never seems to get enough credit for being a way for people, es-pecially adolescents, to boost their self esteem. Receiving positive feedback in the forms of likes, retweets, notes and kind comments can really make someone feel good about them-selves. The Internet can be “an exciting, yet rela-tively safe, opportunity to conduct the social psychological task of adolescence -- to con-struct, experiment and present a reflexive project of the self in a social context,” Sonia Livingstone wrote in her essay “Taking Risky Opportunities in Youthful Content Creation: Teenagers’ Use of Social Networking Sites for Intimacy, Privacy and Self-Expression.” In a study conducted by InStyle, 82 percent of women reported that compliments on social media improve their self-esteem, and 75 per-cent said that social media has strengthened their personal relationships.

Founded in 2004, Facebook was one of the first social media sites to connect people around the world. It was a place to make and chat with friends, play games, post, rant and stalk your ex or new crush. A gateway to its current competitors, it is the father of modern social media sites.

Instagram is a scrapbook of you and your friends, but mostly you, as well as places you’ve been and places you hope to be. You are showing the world how cool you are but more importantly how pho-togenic you are with three or four filters.

Avery Samuels, ‘16

Coyner Public Relations’ “State of the Selfie Report” has deter-mined that around 85 percent of people post at least one seflie per week onto their social media feeds. Of the nine percent of people who reported that they did not post selfies, most said that it was because they would simply rather post pictures of other things.

Morgan Kitchen, ‘17 frequently uses social media sites.

Olivia Garr, ‘20 (left) and Cierra Carter, ‘20 take a selfie together.

Zoe Cheng, ‘15

Along with social media’s ability to create a more global and connected audience comes the opportunity for news and opinions to spread faster than ever before. Familiar Twit-ter hashtags include #JeSuisCharlie, #Fergu-son and #BostonBomberTrial -- hashtags that promote activism and awareness, that connect people with similar opinions and make them aware of opinions unlike their own. Dr. Janet Johnson said to Jenny Doren of WFAA NBC, “I typed in the hashtag Fergu-son just to see what the chatter was this morn-ing.” She described seeing 300 additional tweets each time she refreshed the site. This occurred after a St. Louis grand jury said it would not indict Darren Wilson, a white po-lice officer who shot and killed unarmed black teenager Michael Brown in August 2014. “I get...near all of my breaking news from social media,” math teacher Laurie Cotton said. “[Social media] is instant access to in-formation. [At] any random time, I can see what’s going on in the world, and I can also follow up on previous things...it’s easily di-gestible information at my fingertips.” Nevertheless, anyone with any social media account can post about anything. One must always consider the validity of facts one en-counters online. “If I see like the New York Times’ tweets then I know it’s legit, but if I see like John Smith [tweet]...I try to take it with a grain of salt, but I know a lot of people don’t, and I think that can be very destructive,” SE-NIOR Daniel Youkilis said. If he encounters news on Facebook, Youkilis said he’ll “leave Facebook and go to a more reputable source...But normally it will be like a topic that I’ve read about before and somebody else posted an article about that topic [with] a different perspective about it.”

Your Internet Face

“I hear local news from TV and the WLWT app, but national and world news I usually hear from Twitter accounts, like CNN’s Twit-ter,” SENIOR Shelby Gaines said. Just as breaking news can spread rapidly through social media, so can one’s personal thoughts. For example, in December 2013, Justine Sacco tweeted: “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!” Within the next 11 hours, Sacco be-came a Twitter sensation, denounced by users around the world. Though she only had 170 followers and considered her tweet a joke, Sacco lost her job and was derided ubiqui-tously for the one tweet. “A close-minded idea you posted two years ago and no longer agree with still has your name attached to it,” Gaines said. Social media has become a platform for people worldwide. Whether these people speak positively or negatively, social media allows their voices to be noticed. English teacher Kelsey June said, “I think that a lot of times it does...spark your attention about something going on in the world.”

A more connected audience Avery Samuels, ‘16

These days, it seems like everyone is an expert. Question-and-answer forums have allowed people, whether they are a professional or not, to circulate what-ever information they deem to be true or acceptable. Due to the fact that people have the ability to communicate and post things with ease, social media has become a way for people to assume different roles or professions. For example, people are turning to Yahoo Answers for medical diagnoses and Twitter has become one of society’s main news sources.

Expert sources?

Selfie status

“If people respond to me [on social media], I feel better about myself,” Gillian Gunawan, ‘16, said. After some time online, Alex Gluck, ‘16, said that she, too, feels “more confident than before [because] there’s inspiring ‘treat yourself ’ messages on the Internet.” When going on social media, it is im-portant to remember that everyone else’s lives might always seem amazing, but social media is a metaphorical rose-colored glass. People do not post about the bad things, about the things that they do not want others to see. Keep that in mind the next time you are scrolling through your Facebook feed.

Twitter hashtags and “@” let you find any person, company or topic the world is talking about. You can be anyone or anything, Twitter famous or imitating a real famous person, and most importantly, your opinion and ran-dom thoughts are valued, at least by those who share them.

“There are privacy issues [with social media] like tracking apps, geotags, and people not knowing better when they talk about where they live and what their last name is, which is still more danger-ous now than it was 10 years ago when cyber-stalking and ‘talking to strangers on the internet’ was a huge lesson taught to kids and teenag-ers.”

- Gillian Gunawan, ‘16

REHME LEANZA/CHATTERBOX

TWITTER

TAYLOR DARKS/CHATTERBOX

FACEBOOK

INSTAGRAM

The pros and cons of connectivityJulia Duell, ‘19

To many, technology has become part of the modern lifestyle. However, there seems to be an issue: people are not communicat-ing as much with one another anymore, or at least not face-to-face. Where once two friends would have been talking together, now simi-lar pairs of friends are seemingly absorbed by what is on their phones. There is a large problem concerning peoples’ attachment to their screens and social media, particularly when it comes to how distracting screens can be from completing important tasks such as homework. “I think electronic devices are a big interference with grades,” Ka-tie Solinsky, ‘19 said, “because people spend too much time on their social media, and not enough time studying and doing homework.” Easy-to-access sources of distraction are not the only issues created by social media. Later on in life, what you post can easily be used against you and can possibly prevent you from being hired. “Now, a lot of places, when you get job interviews, they’ll search up through your profiles on social media and stuff, and they could not hire you because you posted something inappropriate or mean,” Solinsky said. However, some people think that instead of keeping people from socializing in real life, re-cent technological advances like social media

Taylor Darks, ‘15

With smartphone technol-ogy advancing every day, the uses for a phone are endless. Besides just texting and calling, there are apps for everything. You have your own personal alarm clock, your own personal GPS, Face-Time and Skype to help you stay connected to family and friends. At first glance you may not be able to tell what a per-son is doing with their phone. The possibilities are limitless.

Taylor Darks, ‘15

The music industry has been almost entirely digitized. iTunes, Pandora, Rdio and other frequent-ly-used websites are where many get their music fill for the day. Stu-dents can be seen listening to music at school, tuning out the stress and perhaps the annoyng noises around them. Teachers struggle to keep the headphones out of their ears, but the buds go right back in at the sound of the bell.

Technology takeover

SENIOR Terrance Sims listens to music during the school day.

Jared Beard, ‘18 is distracted by his phone as he walks through the hallway.

and modern-day electronics actually increase connectivity between people. Lily Unterhasl-berger, ‘19 feels that the Internet actually helps people connect with one another, not the other way around: “There are literal babies now that would not have ever existed if the Internet was not there, so I think that’s just showing how connected we are because of the Internet,” Unterhaslberger said. Just like many things, regardless of whether someone thinks social media, screens and the Internet in general can be beneficial or detri-mental, it is always good to moderate the time during which they are used. “[The Internet] needs to be used in moderation,” Perri Wed-lock, ‘19 said. “If you use it to talk to people you can’t see because they don’t have a phone or something like that, that’s understandable, but if you just do it because you’re lazy and you don’t want to get up and walk to some-body and talk to them, that’s bad.” Wedlock, however, has a few good ideas on alternatives to only communicating with others through electronics. “Write a letter. You don’t have to text all the time. Get up and walk to your friend’s house. You don’t have to FaceTime them all the time.” According to her, “Social media’s good to share, but still [you should] talk in regular-day life.”

Zoe Cheng, ‘15

If today’s reign of social media can be de-fined by one word, perhaps it is this: “share.” Every day, people pull out their phones to film their friends, snap selfies and tweet their thoughts to an audience that is virtually limit-less. “Share” has become almost instinctual in the digital age: we are willing to project our pictures, jokes and ideas to a pool of friends that can widen to include the entire digital world. Social media connects people to a world-wide audience, yet it can also help people stay in touch with friends and loved ones around the world. SENIOR Daniel Youkilis uses Facebook to stay connected with friends who live in places ranging from Salt Lake

City to Jordan. “They don’t live here so I’m not texting them every day. We’re not like best friends, but we’re pretty good friends so like...one a month, every few weeks, I’ll just send them a message on Facebook and people talk for a little while,” Youkilis said. “I can talk to people in Missouri, Canada, Brazil and Australia with ease,” Gillian Gu-nawan, ‘16 said. One of the most common complaints against social media, especially the use of so-cial media on mobile phones, is that it dis-tracts people from face-to-face interaction. But social media cannot be blamed for hu-man action; sites like Facebook and Twitter allow users to both communicate with people worldwide and to learn from people unlike themselves. Tweets from or about different countries may be brought to our attention through just one retweet. Of course, this has its negative effects: according to Eric Schmitt for the New York Times, ISIS followers gener-ate up to 90,000 posts on social media each day. But the pros of worldwide connectivity are prominent, too. By interacting with peo-ple in other social situations, we expand our own minds. Though social media can make us less aware of our face-to-face relationships, it can also strengthen the relationships we hold with people far away.

Global chatter

Helpful apps for school:

Google driveGoogle Docs

SheetsGenius ScanSparknotes

Quizlet Dictionary

BlackboardPowerSchoolGadesaver

MUSIC jUNKIES

TAYLOR DARKS/CHATTERBOX

MiXED MEDiA = MiXED FAiTH

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Sources: <www.coynepr.com>, <www.ktla.com>, <www.news.instyle.com>, <www.ny-times.com>, <www.washingtonpost.com>, <www.wfaa.com>, “Taking Risky Opportuni-ties in Youthful Content Creation: Teenagers’ Use of Social Networking Sites for Intimacy, Privacy and Self-Expression” by Sonia Livingstone

TAYLOR DARKS/CHATTERBOX

SENIOR Hannah Sanders

In Black culture, “going natural” refers to the process of ditching relaxers and em-bracing a person’s natural curl pattern. “I just hated getting relaxers and having to straight-en my hair all the time. It was really incon-venient to have to basically plan a full day to get my hair done. I had a lot of hair,” SE-NIOR Hannah Sanders said. “Also, I hated having to avoid water. It just took too much work. Plus, my hair was just really damaged from relaxers and straighteners constantly being used on it.” Relaxers chemically alter curly and coiled hair to make it straight. In September of 2013, Sanders decided to “big chop,” a term that describes the cutting of relaxed ends. “I feel a lot more comfort-able with myself as a whole,” Sanders said. “Wearing your hair natural counters the idea that Blacks who don’t have ‘good hair’ have to manipulate it in some way to be ‘accept-able.’ It shows that Blacks can wear their hair any way they want and still look put together.”

Kat Thomas, ‘17 Kylie Thomas, ‘17 has been rocking her hair chemical-free all her life. “My hair sym-bolizes my Blackness in the way of showing who I am and the fact that I don’t mind it,” Kylie Thomas,’17 said. “When I was younger, I didn’t have much of a choice [to not get relaxers]. My mom kept my hair braided up because she used to get relaxers, and it broke her hair off,” Thomas said. Relaxers contain chemicals that can cause breakage, scalp burns and per-manent hair loss. “When I did get my hair straightened, I would get it pressed and it would look as if I had a relaxer,” Thomas said. Straight-ening tools such as flat irons and pressing combs are ways that people with curlier hair can achieve straight hair without the added chemicals and permanence. Heat protectant serums can be used to combat heat damage and protect the curl pattern. Thomas is an athlete. During basketball season, instead of wearing her hair straight or curly, Thomas wears her natural hair in braids.

From Nigeria to New York, braids are found deep within African roots. In some parts of Africa, the style of the braid pattern was indicative of a person’s tribe, religion, ethnicity or social class. Braids are also a vi-able way to keep afro-textured hair from tan-gling and knotting. In this way, braids are a great protective style, which means they are good for length retention because of low ma-nipulation. “Cornrow braids are an easy protective style for natural hair. I also think that they are unique because few people wear their hair like this,” SENIOR Hadiya Harris said. “With cornrow braids, you have the versatil-ity, but they aren’t high maintenance which is great for my busy schedule.” Harris has been wearing her hair natural all of her life. Every two months, she gets protective styles to “let her hair breath.” “I love my natural hair, and I wouldn’t change it at all,” Harris said.

Afro-Creole women wear a headscarf

called a tignon to cover their

hair.

1786

the G.A. Mor-gan Hair Refin-

ing Company WAS founded with relaxers as the signa-

ture product.

1913

Joy Pickett, ‘16 Just like any haircut, the “big chop” can go wrong. “In ninth grade, I basically cut all my hair, trying to ‘go natural,’ and I just hated it. My hair was so short and shrunk up a lot. People would say it was cute, but I just thought it was horrible,” Joy Pickett,’16 said. “All my friends’ hair was straight and long or they had weave. So, I felt very insecure with my curly hair.” Curly and coily hair textures can wear protective styles such as weaves or braids to help with length retention and help fight the feeling of insecurity.“It’s not until this year where I really started liking my natural hair. Firstly, it grew a lot. I used to wear weaves because I didn’t like my hair,” Pickett said. “But I learned to really like my hair and em-brace my naturalness. I have new people in

my life who encourage me to embrace it.”“My friends and family really liked my hair. My sisters even decided to cut their hair and ‘go natural,’” Pickett said. “[Natural hair] promotes the ‘connection to your roots’ and to love yourself regardless of what others feel.”

Fearless ‘fros: Girls embrace their natural curls and coilsNisa Muhammad, ‘15

SENIOR Hadiya Harris

Madame CJ Walker was the first fe-male self-made millionaire by

creating a line of hair and beauty

products.

1905

Style & Culture

Chloe Coleman, ‘17 Chloe Coleman, ‘17 went natural during her eighth grade year. “I didn’t see really a point to using chemicals, and I wanted my hair to grow because it had been the same length for years,” Cole-man said. “My hair grew more in the past two years than it had grown since I started relaxing it.” After Coleman went natural, she felt as if she had a lot more versatility with her hair. “I can straighten it. It’s a lot of work, but it can be done. I can wear it curly. I can fluff it out and make it really big. I have a lot of options.” Though embracing one’s natural hair can be beneficial, it can come with a downside such as negative comments. “Once in class, our teacher showed us a caricature of a group of slaves and some-one said, ‘Oh look, there’s Chloe.’”

Coleman does not let those comments affect her. “Some people are just stupid and don’t realize this is how my hair is sup-posed to grow, and there’s nothing wrong with it,” she said. “If the relaxer wasn’t invented, every Black person’s hair would look like mine. People don’t understand that yet, but I know that that’s not my problem, issue or concern, and it definitely doesn’t mess with my self-esteem.” “A lot of Black people alter their texture with chemicals or hide it under weaves because the standard of beauty is heavily based on European looks. They think their hair should be straight and silky because of years of conditioning, and the women that they put on magazines, TV shows, movies, anything you can think of. They all look the same,” Coleman said. “It can be hard to accept that just because you don’t look like that doesn’t mean you aren’t beautiful.”

Imani Shabazz, ‘17 Imani Shabazz,’17 transitioned from re-laxed hair to natural hair. Transitioning is a process in the natural hair movement that involves a person growing out their hair without dramatically chopping off their chemically altered hair. “When my hair started to grow in, I would see how different the two [textures] were. I started to wonder what it would look like natural, and then I wondered why I kept getting [relaxers] in the first place, because it wasn’t my choice,” Shabazz said. “So, when October of 2013 came, I got my last [relaxer] and grew it out until May of 2014, and cut it four days before my birthday, and I was natural.” “I will never forget the first day back to school. My mom chopped it, and it was straggly at the top. I wore a hood all day, but people kept pulling it down. I felt so vulner-able,” Shabazz said. “But the next day I did bantu knots, and I strutted everywhere and felt better than I ever have with my old hair. And since then, I’ve been like that.” Just like Coleman, Shabazz was subject to negative comments as well. “[Strangers] would say things like, ‘Why would you cut it? You have such good hair.’ or ‘If you cut it, it’s going to be nappy,’ ‘Your edges are so nappy. I want to slap a perm on you,’ stuff like that,” she said. “To me, my hair symbolizes who I truly am. No matter who I go out with, what I listen to, or who my friends are, my hair is there to remind those around me that I am not submissive, nor will I ever be,” Shabazz said. “My hair naturally stands tall and so will I. All the curls and kinks are just as femi-nine as my fellow women who have looser textures.”

Jasmin Richardson, ’20

Known as dreads, locs or dreadlocks, this style of matted coils has been seen on celebrities like Bob Marley, Lil Wayne and Whoopi Goldberg. Actress Zendaya Cole-man has also even been seen sporting faux locs. However, Giuliana Rancic’s comment saying that Zendaya probably smelled like “patchouli oil and weed” proved that the hairstyle is still controversial, misunderstood and highly stigmatized. Locs, just like loose natural hair, are extremely versatile. They can be curly, skinny, thick, straight, wavy, long, short or freeform. In many cultures of African descent, locs are seen as an identity opposed to just a hairstyle. While in others, they are a way of wearing natural hair without the extra hassle of worrying about each individual curl or coil. “I don’t have to comb [my hair] every-day. It’s such a relief,” said Jasmin Richard-son,’20. “I tried weaves, braids, twist, and afros, but they would become all nappy and crazy looking. My parents say, and I agree, that I have a different kind of hair, or ’can’t-ya, don’t ya’ hair,” Richardson said. Richardson has been wearing her hair in locs since she was ten. “Because I wear natu-ral hair, some girls with weaves have asked some questions like, ‘Are you from Africa?’” “It would irritate me so much! And I would say, ‘Why would you ask that question? I am the same as you, its just au naturale.’”

ALL PHOTOS TAKEN BY NISA MUHAMMAD

Duafe translates into “wooden comb”, an Adinkra symbol of the Ashanti people, that symbolizes care, love and femininity, the duafe was used by

the Akan women of Ghana and the Ivory Coast.

Cicely Tyson be-came one of the first women to wear cornrow

braids on televi-sion.

1972

Duafe(doo-ah-fey)

Singer India Arie released a song enti-

tled, “I Am Not My Hair.”

2006

Fearless ‘fros: Girls embrace their natural curls and coils

Fine Arts6Breaking Down the Barriers Showcase

Swede Moorman, ‘16

For four years, the Walnut Hills Black Culture Club has organized and orchestrated a student-run tal-ent show called the Breaking Down the Barriers Showcase. The talent show features solely student acts that have ranged from solo voice

performances to fashions shows by student designers. Chairperson of the event, SE-NIOR Tyela Segar, describes the showcase as a way for Walnut Hills to display to the world the different talents that students possess. “We know that Walnut has a lot of tal-ent...we want for everyone to come

out [to the talent show] and show us their talent,” Segar said. This year the showcase suf-fered many setbacks because of snow days. The audition dates were pushed back a week, but the date of the show has not changed ac-cording to Segar. “It’s been crazy,” Segar said. “So much stuff has been

thrown off.” Even though the majority of the operations of the showcase are student-run, the auditions are not. The auditions are judged and proc-tored by four Walnut Hills teach-ers: counselor Adrian Cabrera, as-sistant principal John Chambers, music teacher Charles Ferrara and science teacher Jerron Gray. Both of the club’s presidents:, ENIORS Rachel Hollins andTori Russell, judged as well. This year there were over 55 auditions and only 25 available slots for acts. The club presidents make the final decisions during the auditions, and the teachers “being judges is just from an adult stand-point...their opinion is a factor, however, not the ultimate deci-sion,” Segar said.

The showcase will be held on March 19th at 6:30 p.m.

in the Walnut Hills Auditorium.

Maddy Fixler, ‘16 Over an hour of music. Profes-sional soloists. Three schools. On March 21 at 7:30 p.m. in the Wal-nut Hills auditorium, the Walnut Hills Senior Ensemble, the Taylor High School Senior Choir and the Winton Woods Varsity Ensemble will be coming together to perform “Carmina Burana” in the fourth Sing for a Cause. Since 2011, Sing for a Cause has been raising money through ticket sales and donations for the Alzheimer’s Association of Cincin-nati. “We started doing this about four years ago, where we combine our top choirs, and we invite one other choir from around Cincin-nati to perform a large choral-or-chestral work,” Walnut Hills choir director Anthony Nims said. Orig-inally, the event was organized for students from different schools to have a chance to perform with each other, and has since transformed into a concert for charity that has raised over $22,000 collectively in years past. This year, the three schools are

performing “Carmina Burana,” a choral-orchestral work by Carl Orff, a German composer. The piece has 25 movements total, all of which will be performed by the combined high school choirs (as well as a few junior chior boys), professional soloists and the Wal-nut Hills Percussion Ensemble

brought in for the charity con-cert. “‘Carmina Burana’ is one of the most famous choral-orchestral works ever written,” Nims said. “For our first Sing for a Cause here at Walnut Hills I wanted to do a piece that the students would en-joy, [and that] the audience would enjoy.” The proceeds from this year’s Sing for a Cause will go to the Al-zheimer’s Association of Cincin-nati. The first year that Sing for a Cause went to charity, the money raised was split between the Al-zheimer’s Association and a group associated with breast cancer, but in the following years, the pro-ceeds have strictly been in support of Alzheimer’s. “It’s a great cause, and people should totally come out and support [it],” SENIOR Miles White, President of Senior Ensem-ble, said. “Sing for a Cause is the brain-child of a friend of mine named

Bret Albright,” Nims said. Al-bright is the choral director at Tay-lor High School, one of the three schools performing for Sing for a Cause. At the time of the event’s inception, Nims was teaching at Lakota West High School. Though Nims and Albright had organized Sing for a Cause to give kids the opportunity to sing with choirs from other schools, “I thought this would be a way that our students could not only have

the experience of singing a great, large choral-orchestral work that many kids don’t get a chance to do, but also to learn the lesson of giv-ing,” Nims said. Though this is the first year that Walnut Hills is involved in the event, already over $4,000 has been raised for the Alzheimer’s As-sociation of Cincinnati and stu-dents are working to raise more.

To contribute to Sing for a Cause, students, teachers and

parents can purchase event tickets at <seatyourself.biz> or send checks payable to the Alzheimer’s Associa-

tion of Cincinnati to Anthony Nims at Walnut Hills High School.

Access a preview of the concert on Aurasma by following the Chatter-box channel at “WHHS Cbox” on

the Aurasma App.

Schools gather to Sing for a Cause

SWEDE MOORMAN/CHATTERBOX

AISLING GRUENINGER/CHATTERBOX

“It’s a great cause, and people should totally come out

and support [it].”-SENIOR Miles White

“‘Carmina Burana’ is one of the most famous choral-orchestral works ever writ-

ten.”-Choir director Anthony Nims

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- SENIOR Tyela Segar

Preparing for Sing for a Cause which is on March 21, Senior Ensemble practices “Carmina Burana” in the choir room during second bell. They have been working with this music since the first semester.

SENIORS Anaya Murdock (left), Tyler Adams, Tyela Segar and Leah John-son, ‘16 step in the hallway. Both Murdock and Adams will be performing in the Black Culture Club Breaking Down the Barriers Showcase.

Features 7

New testing: A walk in the PARCC?

8th grade English PARCC exams are set out in the morning before school. It is one of the many standardized test that these 8th graders will be taking over the enxt few months.

Isaac Stephani, ‘16

A topic of many sighs, disgrun-tled moans and eye rolls, the highly debated PARCC tests have finally arrived at Walnut Hills. Much to the dismay of many students, the PARCC tests be-gan February 26th, and will end March 12th, and throughout the time that the tests are being ad-ministered, Walnut Hills will be on an every-other-day flipped bell schedule to accommodate the test-ing hours and the classes the test takers are missing. For those who are not familiar with the organization, The Part-nership for Assessment for College and Careers (PARCC) is a group of states whose mission is to “Work together to develop a set of assess-ments that measure whether the students are on track to be success-ful in college and in their careers.” While this is an ambitious and broad goal, one must question the methods used such as: will the PARCC tests in the younger grades - ie. kindergarten through fourth grade - support the mission

of the PARCC. When asked about this issue, Nick Robertson, ’19, said: “The tests for the little kids are probably too challenging...and probably a little too overwhelm-ing.” The PARCC exams consist of assessments in Mathematics and Language Arts/Literacy. These are strictly the PARCC exams. Any other exams given during this time are legislated and s tandard ized by the state of Ohio and the Department of Ohio Educa-tion. In Ohio, it is mandatory that all seventh through ninth graders (and tenth graders who are not in AP United States History) take the PARCC exams or the cor-responding state-mandated exams

in Science and History. Many do not know the extent to which the PARCC is offered. Each state legislation either chose to be included in these PARCC exams and 11 states and the District of Columbia opted to join. In each of these states, the grades required to

take the PARCC is different. What many people do not know is that there are actu-ally two testing periods for the PARCC exam. In the first test-ing period, the Pe r f o r m a n c e -Based Assess-ments (PBA) are admin i s t e red . They are typi-cally adminis-tered 75% of the way through the

school year, and is what Walnut Hills students are currently fin-ishing up. These exams focus on writing effectively and analyzing

text, and expressing mathematical reasoning and modeling real-world problems. In the second testing period, End-of-Year Assessment (EOY) exams are given, and that is typi-cally after 90% of the course is c o m p l e t e d . These exams will be held in late April, and focus on reading com-prehens ion, and will “call on students to demon-strate further c o n c e p t u a l understand-ing of the major content and ad-ditional and supporting content of the course.” “I don’t think we should have to take it twice. It is a little ridicu-lous and is kind of weird to expect teachers to teach the test and not the regular curriculum,” said Maya Highsmith, ‘19, a PARCC test taker. Robertson agrees with High-smith on this issue, “There isn’t enough time between the two...could have been planned a little better. I am not impressed,” said Robertson. What many people do not know however, is that there is an opt out program with the PARCC tests. On the website <OhioAnsagain-stCommonCore.com>, there is a entry process to opt out of these new PARCC exams. Each state has its own individualized opt out pro-gram, and many are taking advan-tage of it. Many students across the country have stood against these PARCC exams. From hundreds of walkouts in New Mexico to al-most a 70 percent opt out at some schools in New Jersey, these new common core tests are certainly a thing that many people are fight-ing against. “I don’t really like it, I feel really [unconfident] about myself,” said Anna Ika, ‘19, “Even our teach-ers disagreed with some of the an-swers.” While many student share this view, there are many other stu-dents with a different view of the

PARCC exams. Some students prefer them to the alternative, the OAA tests. The PARCC tests now are in place of the OAA tests, and at least at Walnut Hills, some stu-dents say they prefer the PARCC tests to the OAA tests.

“I don’t think the quest ions were above the level we have been t a u g h t . O v e r a l l , my teach-ers have done a good job going over

it, although I guess I could call it stracting, it takes away from what we are supposed to learn,” said Highsmith. Auggy Corder, ‘18 said that PARCC testing may not be the worst thing in the world. “They aren’t particularly difficult, they just drain you and suck your time away.” When asked about the PARCC testing in relationship with OAA testing, Corder said, “OAA’s were pretty awful too, but the PARCCs are a little different. I respect that they are training stu-dents to think outside the box a little bit, while the OAAs we would be mindlessly spewing information onto the paper.” Contrarily, Maya Sheth, ‘18, expresses her views on the PARCC testing in relation to the OAA. “I think the OAAs were easier, but the PARCCs were shorter. How-ever, I think that the PARCCs are more relevant than the OAAs,” One thing to note about the PARCC exams at Walnut are the students. The students at Walnut Hills are notorious to be advanced test takers, and as a result, the in-terviews conducted need to be re-viewed while keeping that in mind. “They were pretty easy, but shorter than the OAAs,” Ander Weyand-Geise, ‘19 said. “I think teachers were expecting a lot of us to fail, but at the end of the day, it’s just another test.”

Sources:: <parcconline.org>, <nj.com>

“THey aren’t particularly

difficult, they just drain you and suck your

time away.” - Auggy

Corder, ‘18

“At the end of the day, it’s just

another test.”- Ander

Weyand-Geise, ‘19

ISAAC STEPHANI/CHATTERBOX

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“What is one interesting aspect that people don’t know about you?”Perspectives

“I like to write lyrics.”

-Ryan Sennett, ‘16

CIX.11 SudokuSean Wood, ‘15

“I am part of the communist Party.”

-Jessica Kavinsky, ‘17

“I won’t be 18 ‘till after my first month of college.”

-Moziba Maloba, ‘15

CIX.11Sean Wood, ‘15

“I can draw.”

-Lauren Goss, ‘18

“I don’t actually like foot-ball.”

-Terts Verhaak ‘20Photographs and prompt by Oliver Olberding, ‘15

Keep up-to-date with the Chatterbox online:

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Email <cboxwalnut@gmail.com> to enter for a chance

to have one of your photos featured in the Chatterbox!

SARAH DAVIDOFF, ‘13

Rules: The answers to these clues exist in the word search. Solve the clues to find the hidden words. The answers are listed below backward.

Clues:1. This team won Superbowl XLVIII2. The most downloaded PC game ever made3. The capital city of Peru4. The style of English most used in scholastic settings5. A composer most famous for a series of nine symphonies6. The third most popular search engine7. The 1970 horror film credited with popularizing the slasher genre8. An ancient Assyrian city recently destroyed by ISIS9. The Former Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, murdered in February10. This country’s last known ebola patient was recently released from a hospital

Answers:1. skwahaeS2. sdnegeL fo eugaeL3. amiL4. ALM5. nevohteeB6. gniB7. neewollaH8. durmiN9. vostmeN siroB10. airebiL

Arcade8