Objectives for Journalistic Writing
Materials:
• All the President’s Men
• Countless articles and book selections
Understanding News: The student will
• define variable factors in news writing
• explain the difference between hard and soft news
• identify news elements that add interest
• identify factors that modify news importance
• identify differences between journalistic writing and English paper writing
Gathering News: The student will
• apply the characteristics of a good reporter
• identify differences among television, newspaper, and radio news gathering
• identify sources for and ways to gather school news
• understand the importance of accuracy
• explain the differences between hard and soft news
Writing News Leads: The student will write using
• summary, grammatical variations, and novelty leads
Writing News Stories: The student will write
• using the inverted pyramid style
• various styles of news stories
Getting and Writing Interviews: The student will
• define key elements of and how to prepare for interviews
• identify types of interviews
• conduct interviews and write stories from them
Writing Effective Editorials: The student will
• understand the purpose of editorials
• write various types of editorials (interpretation, criticism, appreciation, etc.)
• write a column or editorial of entertainment
• analyze and write a review
• identify the purpose of photo-editorials
Writing Feature Stories: The student will
• explain differences between news and features
• write a news-feature story, a personality sketch, and a human interest story
• analyze and write in-depth stories
Writing Sports Stories: The student will
• explain the differences between sports writing and news writing
• write various types of sports stories (follow-up, advance, combination)
• write a sports feature
Editing: The student will
• prepare copy for publication by eliminating wordiness, incorrect grammar, etc.
• copy edit their writing and that of others utilizing style manual rules
• use copy editing symbols correctly
Surveys and Consumer Journalism: The student will
• identify kinds of surveys
• select respondents, phrase questions appropriately, prepare questionnaires
• interpret survey results
Headlines, Typography, Production, Page Makeup: The student will
• write different types of headlines
• discuss the aims of effective page makeup
• apply principles (proportion, balance, harmony, contrast, focus, etc.)
• identify makeup properties of each type of page in a newspaper
• apply the rules of makeup
• dummy and layout a paper
• use word processing and design programs on computers
Photojournalism: The student will
• understand the purpose and appeal of pictures
• apply criteria for good pictures (technical, composition, right of privacy, etc.)
• crop and scale pictures
• write cutlines
Advertising: The student will
• prepare and sell advertising
• identify the functions of school newspaper advertising
• identify faults of school newspaper advertising
• write and display ads