Journalism 1

Daily Assignments and Activities

Journalism Week 1: September 7-10

Tuesday

Welcome to Journalism!

This can be a demanding, difficult class, but I really believe it will be the most fun you’ll have with a class all year.

Don’t forget your 10 interview questions and your message board registration for tomorrow.

Handouts from Day One.

Journalism Syllabus.

Staff Contract.

Writer Information Sheet.

Notes from Day 1

Interview Notes – We looked at Background Research and Personal Interviews today.

Stuff to do this week:

1. Bring in your signed Staff Contract.

2. Sign up for an account on the Message Board. Do not use your full name in your account. Customize your profile and then get posting! You’ll need to make 50 posts on the forum each term. That’s about one per day. About 30 will be taken care of with regular assignments, but the other 20 are up to you to make.

3. Bring your class materials – a notebook, (you’re going to want a large, empty one), a folder.

Wednesday

Welcome back to journalism!

Due today:

• 10 interview questions.

• Registered for a message board account

After viewing some important reminders about how to do interviews, you had time to complete an interview with your partner today.

We will spend about 30 minutes of class doing interviews. You will get about 15 minutes to interview your partner using the interview questions you prepared for homework. Be sure to ask follow up questions to get full stories and to take plenty of good notes. You should leave your interviews with about 5 paragraph-long quotes. More is always better.

After you interview, take time to fully write out your longest quotes. They should be written word-for-word as your partner said them. You can type or handwrite these quotes.

Due Tomorrow:
A 300-400 word story about your partner. The majority of your grade is made up of how well you present your angle and how good your quotes are. You will be expected to write in Lead-Transition-Quote style, but that will not be a large factor in your grade. Make sure you focus on the correct aspects of this assignment.

Your story will be written in Lead-Transition-Quote format. Here are the notes we took on Lead Transition Quote Format.

This assignment can be handwritten or typed, but it is due at the start of the hour tomorrow.

If you want help with writing in Lead-Transition-Quote format, check out this guide. If you want, you can write your story right on the guide sheet!

If you missed the notes today, want to read the sample story, or if you need clarification, download the Lead Transition Quote Overheads or The Smart Board presentation on Lead Transition Quote Format (both include asample story).

If you get stuck, check out this Sample 1st day assignment from last semester.

For a full project description, download this, or click “Read More” at the end of the post.

(more…)

Day 4

We began the day by making a GIANT list of potential story assignments on the whiteboard. We came up with over 100 potential ideas.

This weekend, you need to sign up for the four stories you’d like to write about the most. You must sign up for your four choices by Saturday night at Midnight. I’ll assign stories by the end of the day on Sunday.

Sign up here.

Please follow the instructions in the sign up topic carefully.

Make sure you’re signed in and click “Reply.” Leave a post with:

1. Your first name an last initial.
2. The three or four stories you want to write about the most.
3. Why you’d be great at writing about your story.
4. If you want to work as a team with another students and who that student would be.

Next, we read the introduction Focus on Reporting as a whole class. If you missed today, you need to read the entire chapter, because we’ll be taking a short quiz on Monday at the start of class.

After we read the introduction, we divided in 12 groups. Each group was assigned a concept from the chapter to read, study, summarize, and illustrate. After that, each group presented their summary and illustration to the class.

The concepts you need to understand for Monday are:

1. Theme
2. Research
3. Angle
4. Focus
5. Order
6. Transition
7. Clarity
8. Accuracy
9. Word Choice
10. Description
11. Interpretation
12. Unity

Come back for examples from this year’s class.

Examples from last year’s Block 2 class.

Day 3

Bring your stories that you wrote about your partner. You’ll be sharing them today.

During the first part of the hour, you’ll be getting together with the person you wrote about and another pair of students. You’ll read your story out loud to the group and then listen and critique other stories that are read aloud in your group. After that, one person from your group will share their story with the class.

The reason we read stories aloud in this class is to get used to accountability in your writing. You need to get used to other people reading and reacting to your writing because you’ll be putting your writing out for everyone in the school to read very soon. If you are embarrassed about your writing, that’s a sign that you could have done better. Work to a level where you would be confident with anyone reading what you wrote.

After that, we did a community builder called “I know someone who…” where you got to meet some of your classmates and learn some really interesting things about each other.

Due tomorrow:Bring in two ideas for each section of the paper. The sections are as follows:

1. News
2. Sports
3. Features
4. Opinions
5. Arts and Entertainment

You should have at least ten ideas written down and ready by the time you walk in the door tomorrow. We had about seven minutes at the end of the block to discuss ideas and begin making a list.

Day 2

Welcome back to journalism!

Due today:

• 10 interview questions.

• Registered for a message board account

After viewing some important reminders about how to do interviews, you had time to complete an interview with your partner today.

We will spend about 30 minutes of class doing interviews. You will get about 15 minutes to interview your partner using the interview questions you prepared for homework. Be sure to ask follow up questions to get full stories and to take plenty of good notes. You should leave your interviews with about 5 paragraph-long quotes. More is always better.

After you interview, take time to fully write out your longest quotes. They should be written word-for-word as your partner said them. You can type or handwrite these quotes.

Due Tomorrow:
A 300-400 word story about your partner. The majority of your grade is made up of how well you present your angle and how good your quotes are. You will be expected to write in Lead-Transition-Quote style, but that will not be a large factor in your grade. Make sure you focus on the correct aspects of this assignment.

Your story will be written in Lead-Transition-Quote format. Here are the notes we took on Lead Transition Quote Format.

This assignment can be handwritten or typed, but it is due at the start of the hour tomorrow.

If you want help with writing in Lead-Transition-Quote format, check out this guide. If you want, you can write your story right on the guide sheet!

If you missed the notes today, want to read the sample story, or if you need clarification, download the Lead Transition Quote Overheads or The Smart Board presentation on Lead Transition Quote Format (both include asample story).

If you get stuck, check out this Sample 1st day assignment from last semester.

For a full project description, download this, or click “Read More” at the end of the post.

(more…)

Day 1 – Welcome to Journalism

Welcome to Journalism!

This can be a demanding, difficult class, but I really believe it will be the most fun you’ll have with a class all year.

Don’t forget your 10 interview questions and your message board registration for tomorrow.

Handouts from Day One.

Journalism Syllabus.

Staff Contract.

Writer Information Sheet.

Notes from Day 1

Interview Notes – We looked at Background Research and Personal Interviews today.

Stuff to do this week:

1. Bring in your signed Staff Contract.

2. Sign up for an account on the Message Board. Do not use your full name in your account. Customize your profile and then get posting! You’ll need to make 50 posts on the forum each term. That’s about one per day. About 30 will be taken care of with regular assignments, but the other 20 are up to you to make.

3. Bring your class materials – a notebook, (you’re going to want a large, empty one), a folder.

Term 4 – Day 17

Communications Law Review – Answers

Term 4 – Day 16

We started the day by finishing the Communication Law Packet. We reviewed the Free Press/Fair Trial Dilemma, what has been done to address the issue, Shield Laws and why journalists either want them or don’t, and then we looked at the Hazelwood case one last time.

After that, we listened to a portion of an episode of This American Life (We listened from 5:30-35:00 of the episode). We used the episode to discuss good storytelling and journalism.

Part of storytelling is story finding. At this point, we’ve got some more time to find stories around the school and involving students.

Notice also, how the storyteller weaves in facts, details, excerpts of transcripts, and direct quotations. Think about the work that went into producing this.

Then, we talked about The Free Press/Fair Trial dilemma, what’s being done to address this problem, and Shield Laws.

The big review for the test is tomorrow. Remember that the review is the key to a successful test.

To make things even better, you can download the majority of the questions on the review game right now!

Download the Communication Law Review Preview!

Or click on the images below to see full pages:

Term 4 – Day 11

First of all, if you didn’t share your drafts currectly on Google Docs, you aren’t going to have feedback on your rough draft.

Here’s today’s plan:

1. Gather the feedback you received from McCallum, the editors, and your classmates. If you did everything correctly on Friday, you’ll have a ton of feedback. If you didn’t, you won’t have so much.

2. Write down the things you see that make sense. What did you do well and what do you need to improve on?

3. Create an Action Plan that lists, specifically, what you need to do before your draft is final on Friday.

4. After you’ve typed up your Action Plan, get started on doing it. Your final draft is due on Friday. Turn in your Action Plan by the end of the block.

We will get back into Communication Law tomorrow, so please review your Supreme Court Case notes for tomorrow.

Term 4 – Day 10

Your drafts are due at the end of the block today. To get credit you must:

1. Have them on Google Docs and shared with your editors  and McCallum. DO NOT share with your J2Peer Coach.
2. Post them on the Homework Help board as a new topic.
3. Fill out your Rough Draft Evaluation
4. Update your Purple Folder. You should have; a copy of your draft, a rough draft, and your interviews.

Your assignment for the weekend is to read and respond to FIVE stories on the Homework Help Board. Your posts must include Praise, Push, and Proof that you actually read the story. This is worth 50 points – 10 points per post.

Term 4 – Day 8

You had the first part of the block to finish your posters.

After that, you presented and took notes on other presentations.

People who had interviews done today received extra credit. Those people who turn interviews in tomorrow will get full credit. We won’t have time to type today, but we’ll have tomorrow and Friday to write the rough draft.

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