Women in the locker room

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In the context of web context: How to check out any Web page

In the context of web context: How to check out any Web page

Course Syllabus, quarter 1

Journalism
Ms. Lannin
Quarter 1 2010

Welcome to Journalism! This quarter you will be learning a lot about newswriting, as well as gaining some exposure to some of the changes happening in journalism.

Your final grade will be derived from a portfolio of your work. The portfolio will include five pieces of writing either generated from in-class assignments or on your own. They will be graded on completeness and the effort you put into the revision process. A more detailed rubric will be provided to you in the weeks to come. The kinds of stories you'll be practicing writing this quarter include:

1. A feature-length profile of a classmate or other interesting person

2. An opinion piece on a topic of your choice.

3. A news story

4. A speech story

5. A game story

6. A trend story

7. An obituary

8. A survey-based story

9. A "Q and A" with a teacher/other adult

10. A follow-up to or a localizing of an already-published story


You will also be asked to contribute on a regular basis to this class blog by:

a. Posting the link to one story every five weeks that you liked, telling the class why you think it’s a good story, journalistically

b. Responding to classmates’ blog entries once a week by leaving comments on the blog.

The URL of the class blog is www.etclass.blogspot.com. I’ve done the first post and written a model of how I’d like you to respond to it. I also left a comment that should give you an idea of how to comment on someone else’s article.

You’ll have a significant amount of class time to work on your stories and on your blog posts. But you should expect to have homework at least a couple of nights a week -- particularly in the first half of the quarter, as we lay the foundation for how to interview, how to take notes, how to write news stories, etc. etc.

Meeting deadlines is important to being successful in this class (and as a journalist). If you can’t meet a deadline you and I have come up with, you need to let me know via email or the day before. If you don’t make this effort, you will lose points. If you let me know in advance, you won’t. My email address is: jolannin@gmail.com

What happens if (and when) newspapers die?

This article is long, but relevant to all of us who care about journalism. The big question is, what happens if and when newspapers die?

Who is to blame here?

This story is about a wrongly-accused man and the question I had is: who is to blame? Was it the police for releasing his name to the public before finding probable cause that he was the carjacker? Or was it the media for publishing the name?

Here's the story.

Write three alternative leads

For the following set of facts write three different kinds of leads. Make sure you still manage to tell what happened.

Joe Jones scored his first touchdown of the season last night.

Jones’ touchdown came with less than a minute to play against Abington High School.

Jones is a wide receiver.

Jones leaped into the air to catch the pass in the back of the end zone.

This was Rockland High School’s last regular season game.

This was Jones’ first game of the season.

Jones broke his leg in preseason practice and was on crutches until three weeks ago.

Rockland beat Abington 6-0.

Jason Lutz is Rockland’s quarterback.

Jones barely managed to keep both feet inbounds.

The winning touchdown was scored on a 32-yard pass from Jazon Lutz.

Rockland plays Whitman High next week in the opening round of the playoffs.

“It was great having Joe back on the field,” said Coach Harry Schneider.

“With Joe back in the lineup, I think we can go all the way,” said Jason Lutz.

“I am a senior and I will graduate in June.” said Joe Jones.

Alternative Leads

As we discussed in class yesterday, feature stories work best if you start them in an interesting way. Some of the different kinds o leads we talked about were:
1. Summary - tells what the story is a about, but with a few interesting details
"The eight eagle chicks that were introduced to the wild in Addison last spring are now surviving successfully on their own."

2. Descriptive: Describes the place, the scene of an event, or a person.
"In the middle of a junior golf tournament on a humid, 100-degree day, Abby Spector, then 12, missed yet another putt she should have made." Her father came over to her, and in a whisper, asked Abby if she wanted to quit. Abby cooly took a different club from her bag and headed for the next tee. "We've been through a lot worse than this," she said.

3. Narrative: Makes it obvious that a story is going to be told. Can be a lot like a descriptive lead

4. Compare/Contrast: Starts with an expectation and uses "but," "yet," or "however" to dispel it.
" Francine Grover can audit and review an expense sheet in her sleep." But she doesn't need those skills at the only job she can find these days: flipping burgers at McDonald's."

5. Question: "Have we come to the end of an era?"

6. Direct Address: The You Lead
" Admit it. You think you're a better than average driver."

7. Quotation (Make sure it's a good one.)
"So how is it you're so lucky to have two moms?" the hair stylist asked Emily. Without hesitation, Emily, 8, replied," Well, they met in college, fell in love, and years later, here I am!"

8. Shocking: The last one is a bit of a shocker, but here's another one:
"Kathy Eldrid should be dead by now."

9. Suspense: Like narrative, but with a lot of drama:
"Looking back, it all seemed too good to be true."

10. Literary, or historical allusion; Referring to a character from history or literature to either make a comparison or contrast.
"Fans seem to consider him more powerful than a locamotive, faster than a speediing bullet, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, but Michael Jordan isn't really Superman. He's just the best player playing in the NBA today.