The Tusker Tribune The Student Newspaper of Somers Middle School

Issue Number 4 https://www.somersschools.org/Page/11489 Fall 2019 Online Safety is Never a Joke By Katherine Papa Some examples of a trusted adult are, Tusker Tribune Staff mom, dad, teacher, school guidance counselor, The Internet is a place where every- principal or assistant principal. If you don’t feel one seems to be nowadays. It’s a place comfortable talking to any one of these people you where people can connect with people that can talk to a grandparent, uncle, aunt, or a family they don’t see in person. friend that you are close with. Just However, there are certain pre- make sure that the person is and adult cautions you should take when and has shown they are trustworthy in signing up for social media or the past. talking to people that you don’t Of course, you should be able to know personally. spot out people who are faking some- One thing you should keep thing they say online. If you can’t, then in mind while on the internet is you should know people aren’t always your confidential information. You what they say. Because it’s the inter- should never share certain things net, you can’t tell who or what is behind about yourself. the other side of your conversation. For For example, no matter all you know, the 14-year-old girl you what anyone says over a message, never share thought you were talking to is actually a 70-year- your password and full name. These things along old man who broke out of jail. Obviously, this is a with others are what they call confidential infor- very extreme example, however you never know mation. Some other examples of confidential infor- unless you’ve met the person in person, you and mation are, address, where you go to school, phone them. number, yours or your parent’s workplace, mom’s As you can tell, the internet is a great place maiden name, email address, and social security to be, but there are things you should keep in number. There are other things that you shouldn’t mind when you talk to people you don’t know or share but those are the big ones. sign up for a website that your parents don’t know Another thing you should remember is that about. sometimes something happens that makes you Now remember: feel unsafe or uncomfortable, If it does you should  No personal information tell a trusted adult as soon as possible. If someone  Tell a trusted adult if something happens threatens you or says unkind things to you or  You never know who is on the other side of the someone you know, you should tell a trusted conversation. adult. 8th Grade Gears Up for NaNoWriMo

By Joe Melillo kind of be “in love” with our fic- Tusker Tribune Staff tional characters and how we NaNoWriMo stands should always love what we are for National Novel Writing writing and our setting and plot. Month and it is basically is a He said that we should ton of schools with students keep writing and we can go back writing NOVELS! and edit our writing later be- It starts on November 1st at cause 1st drafts are never per- midnight and ends on November fect. The 8th graders started 30th. It is basically just writing a taking notes and some even novel about something that interests started writing their novels. you. Today, Author Joe Wallace Basically NaNoWriMo came into the library to show us how to write a will be a long and tough month for the 8th graders novel and he gave the 8th graders tips on how to and by the end, they’ll have a nice novel published write novels. He told us that we should always and ready to be read. The Tusker Tribune Page 2 The Student Newspaper of Somers Middle School NBA Power Rankings and Predictions

By Benji Cutler 3. Tusker Tribune Staff 4. You might not know this, but the 5. 2019-20 NBA Preseason began September 30, and that means that the NBA Regular Western Conference Season is about a month away. Even Northwest: though we can’t read what the future holds of 1. what’s going to happen this season, but we can Nikola Jokic, Jamal predict what could happen. That’s exactly what Murray, I’m going to be doing today. I’m going to predict 2. Portland Trail Blaz- the rankings of all 30 NBA Teams, doing it by di- ers vision. I will also be naming the top team for each 3. division’s best three players. Enjoy! 4. Minnesota Timber- wolves Eastern Conference: 5. Oklahoma City Atlantic: Thunder 1. Pacific: , Ben 1. Simmons, Al Hor- Kawhi Leonard, , ford 2. 2. 3. 3. 4. 4. 5. 5. Southwest: 1. James Harden, Russell Westbrook, Central: 2. 1. 3. Giannis Antetokoun- 4. mpo, Khris Middle- 5. ton, Eric Bledsoe 2. That’s it for my 2019-20 NBA Season Pow- 3. er Rankings. And by the way, this list could be 4. accurate or off by a good amount. These are just 5. Cleveland Cava- non-biased predictions that I have made for this liers season. To prove it, I put my favorite team, the , at number 5! Once again, Southeast: the 2019-20 NBA Season begins October 22, so 1. stay tuned for more updates on what’s going on Nikola Vucevic, , Evan Fournier around the NBA! 2.

The Tusker Tribune is the online Somers The Tusker Tribune of Somers Middle School Middle School Student Newspaper. It is published weekly (except during school Co-Editors: Noah Volkman, Joseph Melillo vacations) on the Somers Middle School Website. It is entirely student-written by Editorial Staff: Samuel Sanz, Allison O’Connor 6th, 7th and 8th grade students from: Somers Middle School, 250 Route Reporters: Katherine Papa, Benji Cutler, Joseph Melillo 202, Somers, NY, USA. Any SMS student is eligible to write sto- ries. If interested, please e-mail Advisor Dean Pappas at [email protected]