Journalism Summary 10/22/12

The last two weeks we have been focusing on preparing our articles and sections for publication and discussing what makes an editorial or opinion column effective and meaningful.

A detailed email was sent last night listing each student's remaining editing responsibilities before final articles are due for submission, as well as any additional homework. After receiving their edited articles on Monday, October 29th, all written pieces, photography and art, and advertisements, must be emailed to me no later than November 2nd (preferably before, if completed).

On Monday, we held a staff meeting workshop, which gave editors a chance to look over some of the articles and make suggestions to the reporters and authors. Our Comics writer staged two of her original comics frame by frame and we photographed them with the hopes of presenting a "real-ilfe" comic strip with Mosaic students as the stars!

Several students who had written editorials shared their work, and other students volunteered to write op-ed pieces or letters-to-the-editor (either disagreeing or agreeing with the editorials) to be published in a future issue of The Mosaic Monthly.

We then split into groups of two and challenged each group to write a suitable "hook" for an opinion piece on using the internet for educational purposes. We discussed some pros and cons of the issue and tried to use one of four techniques for writing a hook (description, startling statistic, question, or anecdote). Some students struggled with this a bit, but several nailed it on the first try. We are truly tackling some different writing styles in this class, and I know it has been a challenge to continually shift gears from week to week.

We still have much to cover and will be publishing two more issues of our paper, so that all students will get a chance to write, edit, and create. If your student is having trouble editing their assigned work, it is acceptable to assist them at this stage.  We will be spending an entire class on editing in the near future, in addition to many other topics that relate to writing and journalism.

Next week we will decide on layout and placement of articles and sections, and start talking about our next issue.  We may even learn about advertising and create some fun ads of our own.

Spolier alert: There may be a J-Jargon challenge next week, but you didn't hear it from me!

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