Introduction

The Documentary project serves as a big obstacle freestyle juniors, as it is one of the hardest projects. Given responsibility of interviewing and crafting a narrative about individuals who are actively shaping our community for the better, I embarked on a meaningful journey to document their impactful stories within the pages of my book “Beyond The Court”.

As a Junior in Design, I began the design process. Selecting a color scheme, laying out the table of contents, and producing the rest of the book. I interviewed my basketball coach, Xavier Cook. He crafts and molds young athletes into champions while also helping those who struggle with mental health. One of the players, and my teammate, Alana Hernandez contributed to the story as well.

In the Junior Documentary Project, students were told to explore the art of creatively and authentically depicting noteworthy individuals, groups, concepts, or societal concerns within our community. Through the amalgamation of primary and secondary research sources, participants will cultivate a unique perspective on the significance of their chosen subject within the local or global context. The research-driven paper produced in English class will serve as the foundation for crafting magazine articles in Design class, as well as scripts for film, commercials, and website content. This unit places a strong emphasis on narrative-style journalism, encouraging students to weave compelling narratives that capture the essence of their subjects.

When I first discovered this project, only one name had popped into my head. I wanted to write this book about Coach Cook because not only have i known him for nearly 4 years now, he also has inspired me, taught my life lessons, and much more as you will read about in the pages below.

Although this project was a struggle and took large amounts of time to finally complete, I learned a lot. Most importantly it is important to stick to deadlines. I know when I started this project I thought I would be able to finish it with ease before the deadlines. That was soon proven wrong. To all those doing this project in the future, listen to your teachers, follow their instructions, and don’t risk getting behind.

Thank you to all those who were involved in the process of making this book, I had a lot of fun. Thank you to Ms. Parkinson and Mr. Florendo for helping me learn how to operate such advanced applications, and to Mr. Greco for helping me create and perfect the text. Huge thank you to Coach Cook, this wouldn’t have been possible with you.