Task descriptions of our online course

NOTE: THERE MIGHT BE UPDATES TO THESE DESCRIPTIONS PLEASE CHECK THIS POST ON A REGULAR BASIS.

1. By the end of this online course, you should have created  a simple online digital class magazine with various pages devoting to different topics. (The results of grouping and the topic of each group have been announced at the end of the first face-to-face class.)

2. There is no specific assignment on a weekly basis concerning creating the magazine, while I will monitor your contributions as it is an important part of the course assessment. Each of you is encouraged to actively contribute during the entire process to your group in terms of page editing including articles, photos, videos, artwork, etc.

3. You are allowed to edit or even delete other group members’ contributions as long as you think necessary. The articles should reflect the basic magazine writing skills you learn in your face-to-face classes, and should be cohesive and coherent in your final product. (The username and password of the wiki have been announced at the end of the first face-to-face class.)

4. You are encouraged to leave comments, ask questions and give suggestions in the discussion section of each week in this blog.

5. Each one of you are responsible for synthesizing all the messages and posting a general one to the discussion section on a weekly basis. I will give feedback as soon as possible.

6. During the last two weeks of our online course, you are encouraged to give suggestions to other groups by means of leaving comments in wiki rather than editing their pages directly.

Additional reading for week 3: Writing a News Article

  1. Learn to use the inverted pyramid. The inverted pyramid is the basic and most widely used format for writing news. A story starts with the most important information, transitions to the supporting information and concludes with less essential information. It has the following parts:

    • The lead (or “lede” as it’s often spelled in the news business), which is the first paragraph (or “graf”) or introduction and contains the who, what, when and where of the story.
    • The backup for the lede, which is the second graf and is typically a quote that supports the lede.
    • The nut graph, which provides context and answers the question “So what?” It’s only used, however, with a “soft” or feature-style lede.
    • The body of the story, which explains the “how” and the “why” and provides background information, supporting points for elaboration and additional quotes.
    • The conclusion, or “kicker,” which summarizes the story or provides future action.
  2. Prepare to write your story. Gather your research materials and your interview and field notes and review them again. Highlight particularly strong quotes. Write down the main idea of your story in 1-2 sentences. Through your research and interviewing, the focus may have changed from what you originally planned and that’s okay, even good. Now create a rough outline of your story.
    • Try to put yourself in the readers’ shoes. What questions will they have on the topic? Are you answering them?
    • Everyone is different, so if you find a method that works better for you definitely use it.
  3. Craft your lede so you’d want to read the story. The first thing the audience reads is the headline, which they use to decide if they want to read the story. The next thing they read is the lede, which often determines if they read the rest of the story! A direct summary lede needs to be punchy, but most importantly it needs to get to the point quickly and concisely, covering four of the five Ws – who, what, when and where.
    • Think back on the elements of news and how to use them as frames for your lede. Just as conflict, for example, engages the reader, it can also be used to grab the reader’s attention in the lede.
    • A lede should be one sentence between 25-30 words, and at most 40.
    • Write in active voice, meaning the subject of the sentence performs some action rather than receives the action. For example, “Michael drove the car.”
    • Hard news can also have “soft” ledes. These and feature ledes often contain anecdotes, captivating questions, intriguing quotes and scene-setters.
  4. Next write the backup for your lede. This is often a fact or more than one that helps substantiate the lede, particularly if you have a soft or feature lede. Generally, though, the backup is your strongest quote, especially if you’ve written a standard summary lede. It should never repeat the essential wording in the lede but instead support and elaborate upon what is written in the lede.
    • Again, think back to the elements of news when deciding which quote you want to lead with, that you think will have the most impact on the reader.
    • With all quotes, make sure you attribute them to the correct sources.
  5. Transition with the nut graph if you used a soft or feature lede. The nut graph should, in a nutshell, explain the main point of the story and provide context. It should aim to answer the reader’s natural question of, “So what?” It’s also often used as a transition from the lede to the rest of the story and may contain facts and figures. Here are some things to consider when writing a nut graph.
    • What is the significance of the event or issue?
    • Is this the first time this has happened? Or the time that finally has consequences?
    • Has a change occurred? Or is this a new trend?
  6. Write the body of your story. This will be a mixture of quotes from sources, background information, and supporting facts and figures to support the story’s central focus and to further elaborate on it. This is where “how” and “why” enter the picture. Additionally, the human interest aspect of a story should be included high in the body of your story because this is a large reason a person will continue reading.
    • Objectivity is critical in news writing, so it’s very important to present both (or more) sides of the story.
    • Don’t allow your opinion to slip into your writing. You can help counter this by presenting both sides in equal proportion and placement.
    • Intersperse quotes throughout the story. Don’t bunch them together; instead, separate quotes with text.
  7. Finish your story with the kicker. This generally comes in one of two forms: a) as a quote that sums up the main idea of the story, leaves the reader feeling a strong emotion or describes a future action or b) as a graf that circles back and expresses an idea from the lede or sums up the article similarly to the nut graph.
    • At the end of the story, skip one line and in the center of the page type either ### or -30-. This signals the end of the story.
    • Always be careful when ending with a quote because if it’s a contentious issue the quote will have to come from one side or the other. This could influence readers and may not be objective and impartial reporting.
  8. Compose the headline. At most magazines, editors and copy editors write headlines. But you should still write a tentative headline for your story. Headlines are written in normal sentence structure but are only between 3-7 words typically. They use active voice, present-tense verbs and never end with punctuation.
    • Try to get who, what, when and where in the headline.
    • Only the first word, and all proper nouns, should be capitalized.
    • Never use the verb “to be” or its variations, such as “was” or “is.”
    • Don’t use “and” or “but” in a headline; use a comma instead.

    adapted from http://www.wikihow.com/Write-an-Article-for-Your-School-Newspaper

Additional reading for week 2: Knowing What Constitutes News

  1. Make sure your story is timely. Scholars and journalists generally agree there are seven elements that make something news and, therefore, newsworthy. The first is timeliness. Hard news most particularly relies upon reporting what’s happening now, or what just happened – not what happened three months ago.
    • People want to know what’s going on in the world around them right now; it affects them, intrigues them and informs them so they can make good decisions.
    • Timeliness is often a story’s “news peg,” or the angle every story must have to connect the reader to the here and now.
  2. Focus on an issue or event’s impact. Another fundamental news element is impact, or how many people are going to be affected and to what extent they will be affected by the event or issue. The greater the effect the more newsworthy the event or issue, whether that effect is good or bad.
    • Impact can also be dependent upon its relationship to other events or facts.
  3. Look locally for stories. When you’re brainstorming story ideas, always think about the element of proximity. 
    • To write an article for your class magazine, think about what is happening in class, about student experiences, about class policy and so forth.
    • Also think of proximity in terms of taking a story that happened from afar and then localizing it, or using it to write a story that involves local or class-related people and issues.
    • “Could that have happened here?” is a guiding question to ask in doing this.
  4.  Jump on conflict when it arises. Conflict and controversy – the clashing of opinions, attitudes and values – manifests in numerous ways and increases a story’s news value substantially. While many of these stories are grounded in people’s fears, stories involving conflict can also act as a diversion from the struggles of people’s everyday lives and be the impetus for debate and discussion on important issues.
    • As a writer, look for arguments, debates, fights, charges and counter-charges, suspensions, expulsions, strikes or threats to strike and the like to cover.
  5. Take note of anything particularly unusual. Oddity, another central element of news, refers to humans’ fascination with things that are out of the ordinary. A journalistic cliché for this is: “When a dog bites a man, it’s not news. But when a man bites a dog, you’ve got a story.” It might be a strange occurrence, a miraculous feat, a change in the everyday way of doing things – whatever the oddity, if you think enough students will be intrigued, pursue it.
    • Stories are written every day about the first this, the longest that, the greatest of something else.
    • So always be on the lookout for a record that’s broken, a class  goal that’s reached or achieved (or not), a student’s achievement that’s beyond stellar, etc.
  6. Know the power of emotion to sell information. Human interest pieces help sell newspapers by arousing emotion in readers. Whether in sympathy or anger, people are drawn toward hearing other people’s stories. As a journalist who tells those stories, that’s not a responsibility to be taken lightly.
    • The Society of Professional Journalists’ (SPJ) code of ethics is divided into four sections, one of which is the necessity to minimize harm.
    • Always treat the subjects of your stories as humans deserving of your respect, and carefully weigh sensitive information you learn against any benefits the audience will get from receiving it.

    adapted from http://www.wikihow.com/Write-an-Article-for-Your-School-Newspaper

Additional reading for week 1: Covering Who, What, When, Where, Why and How

  1. Tell readers “who” was involved in the story. In every good news story, you have to answer the following questions for your audience so it knows precisely what happened – Who? What? When? Where? Why? and How? Starting with “who” requires identifying who was involved in the event or issue about which you’re writing. “Who” is also driven by the type of event or issue – the roles people played in it and their relationship to it or to others directly involved.
    • For example, if it’s the school baseball championship game, the “who” could include players from both teams, coaches, fans, parents, administrators, etc.
    • If it’s a story about school budget cuts, the “who” could include students, teachers, administrators, parents, school board members, state legislators, the state department of education, etc.
    • Not all of these people will be the “who” in a story; a story could involve just one person. A reporter’s job is determining “who” are the key players.
  2. Explain “what” happened. “What” is at the heart of every news story because it is the news. It describes an action, or what occurred or was decided. With feature news stories, the “what” is often a bit different because in many cases nothing has really happened. Instead the article is about a topic, making it the “what.”
    • You also have to think of “what” in terms of details that you will include in your story. “What” color were the new uniforms the team wore to the championship game?
  3. Say “when” the event took place. “When” a decision is made also applies as it occurs during an event, meeting or discussion of some kind. The “when” in a story may be in the past, present, future or even more than one of these if the story covers an event about an ongoing issue. In this case, covering “when” isn’t only writing the date and possibly the time of the event but also the dates of events and decisions made in relation to the one you’re writing about now.
    • “When” also includes other time factors, such as when the baseball team left to drive across the state to the game.
    • In a feature story, “when” might involve the year your new principal graduated from college, for example, if you’re writing an article introducing him or her to the student body.
  4. Identify “where” the event occurred and “where” your reporting took you. If writing about the baseball game, you would include the name of the town or city, the school and perhaps even the stadium. Later in the story you might even describe “where” the catcher ran in the sidelines to catch the fly ball that won the game.
    • In terms of identifying “where” your news gathering led you, the “where” in the story on your new principal might include the town you visited when interviewing his or her former co-worker.
    • In cases such as this, “where” becomes part of the narrative of your story.
  5. Explain “why” the story is newsworthy. This is generally the most important question to answer because it helps the audience understand why the story is worth reading. “Why” provides an explanation for the event or for the motivations behind the actions of a person in the story. It is often the theme or conflict that drives the story.

    • ”Why” did the principal decide to switch schools? Does he or she have family nearby? “Why” was this year so great for the baseball team? Did they get a new coach?
  6. Clarify “how” things in the story transpired. Answering this question often explains complex issues and processes as well as minute details for readers. For example, an interview with a school board member might reveal how the board came to its decision to cut funding for the journalism program. A good story will also do its best to describe “how” the event, issue or decision will affect readers.
    • Answering “how” also covers questions such as “How many people attended the game?” or “How much did the tickets cost?

    http://www.wikihow.com/Write-an-Article-for-Your-School-Newspaper