Instructions for 4-30-09

You need to finish your final article from yesterday, as well as, your ledes for the week. Once you've posted those you then need to get into Microsoft Publisher and pick a newsletter template for your news paper. For Monday you need to have printed the template you want to use. Bring it with you to class.

For the next two days

As you should know my son Jude had surgery yesterday, he's doing fine but not sleeping much at night, so I'm going to stay home for the next two days. Please treat my substitute with the utmost respect! What you need to do for the next two days is finish your reviews that are due this week. You can pick any of the types of reviews other than the book review this week. You also need to write your editorial. The format is linked to the web page now so check it for details if you need that extra structure.

To make a few things crystal clear.

Reviews should be at least 600 words in length. I'm not setting a maximum. Your review is a finished product so turn it in as such.

Your editorial needs to be between 300 and 500 words. You need to have a very complete rough draft done Thursday. We will work on editing them Monday, so you need to not only post them to your Blog but also print a hard copy and bring it to class Monday. (Yes I will give you a grade just for having your draft when the bell rings Monday.)

Because of Paws testing I'm pushing your quiz back till Monday. You're welcome. :)

Computer troubles

As you know with the move to the new high school we'll be going offline for a week or so. So for anyone who is following the blog we'll be working in class to really polish your interviews you handed in last week. I'm going to be pretty flexible on the due date. Let's see if the new computer center is up and running in time to print.

Interview

  For this assignment you need to interview a person of your choosing. They can be whoever you want, as long as they can provide with enough information to write the story. 
This is exactly like the other interview based stories you've already written so don't panic.

In this story you need to tell us an interesting story about the person you interview. Don't try to tell their whole story rather focus on an interesting event that they are willing to share with you.

  Here are a few steps you need to follow to be able to do the assignment well.

First pick a person to interview and make sure their willing to be interviewed. 

Second develop your open ended interview questions.

Third interview the person. You may want to interview them more than once. You may need them to clarify an answer for you. You may also want to schedule a follow up interview over the phone or email. so make sure you give yourself enough time. 

Fourth look over the answers to your questions. Use their answers to write your story about them.

The story you write needs to follow the basic guidelines we've covered in class. You need to have the five ws and the h. The story needs to be written in the inverted pyramid and you need to have a catchy lede.

The finished story needs to be between 2 and three pages in length. (500-900 words)

You need to have a rough draft posted to your Blog by the Monday we return from spring-break.(100 points) We will workshop them in class. Final copies will be posted to your Blogs Thursday, March 19. (300 points)

 
The grades for the interview will be the first grades of the new quarter rather than the last grades for this quarter. So make sure you have everything in on time so you can start off on a good foot.

News story 2-26-09

You all know you should finish your Ledes today. If you recall I gave you Monday to get a jump start on that. So today you need to finish the ledes and get them turned in. On top of that you need to write a news story based of yesterday's mock interview. You need to write and submit the news story like any other assignment, but you need to make sure everyone's name is on it. Each one of you need to have it on your own Blog. You should title the post object lesson.

Here's what you need to do. Based on your interview yesterday you need to write one story for the whole group. You need to makes sure the story answers the 5 Ws and the H.  It needs to be written in the inverted pyramid style, it needs to have a strong lede at he begining, and it needs to have a catchy title.

The final product needs to be at least a page in length. (300 words) It's my suspicion you will need to write more than that to really tell your tale. (100 points)

WE HAVE A PROBLEM.

Well actually some of you have a problem. Not everyone has added me as an author to their Blog. Before we get started on the assignment today you need to go to your Blog's dash board and click settings. After you have done that click permission and then click add author. At this point get my attention, so I can see that I'm added. If I'm not added already invite me to your blog.Also while we are at it if you haven't signed up to follow the Blog yet do so now. 50 points for everyone who has this done today.

Article assignment

Article assignment

In order to better get acquainted with modern journalism you need to start reading the news. I know o.m.g. I have to read? Yep, it’s English class, you have to read. Every week from here on out you need to read articles from real news sources. We have newspapers in the library and I am about to provide you in class with several links to news sources as well. Every Thursday you will need to turn in four articles. You need to hand in a roughly one paragraph synopsis/lede for the article as well as either a link to the article or the original article itself.

Besides keeping you up on current events that might be affecting your life this assignment will offer you a couple of interesting benefits. First, by reading the story and summarizing it you will have to think critically about the information you are ingesting. You will have to decide what the really important details are, and think about how to present them in away that catches your reader’s attention. Second, it will give you writing practice. Third, it will help you continue practicing your computer skills we have been working on so far. It also will help you learn to write a lede, which may be your most important step to getting a news story published. A lede is the introduction to a news story.

What you need to do is read several current news stories; they must come from real sources and be hard news stories. Human interest, sports, and celebrity gossip will not be accepted. You should be looking for stories that involve world events, science, politics, the environment, education, or the economy. These should be stories of consequence that have real effects on people’s lives. After you have read several sources pick four that seem the most important you, summarize their main ideas, and then turn the summary into an introduction. Once you have done this submit the assignment like you would any other assignment for the class; the title should be NEWS, then the date of the Thursday you are handing them in for ex: 1-22-09.

Here are some examples of the type of lede I want you writing.

Israel Declares Cease-Fire In Gaza
January 17, 2009 · Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced a suspension of the three-week-old military offensive in Gaza, but a Hamas spokesman said the Palestinians would continue to fight until Israeli forces withdraw. (27) (4)

Official Reflects On Foreign Aid Triumphs, Challenges
January 17, 2009 · The Bush administration leaves behind a solid legacy in humanitarian aid and development, says Henrietta Fore, the outgoing director of U.S. foreign assistance and head of USAID. Her final days on the job are busy, dealing with crises in Gaza and Zimbabwe. (5) (0)

Middle East
U.S. To Help Israel Shut Down Smuggling Tunnels
January 16, 2009 · The U.S. has promised to provide technology and training to help find and destroy tunnels between Egypt and Gaza. Israel says the tunnels are used to smuggle weapons and explosives to Palestinian militants. (59) (12)

Sorting Out A Clear Strategy For Afghanistan
January 16, 2009 · When Barack Obama takes office next week, he'll inherit an increasingly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan. A troop increase has already begun, but some question the signals that strategy sends. In addition, analysts urge Obama to take a regional approach. (18) (2)

Middle East
Day Of Heavy Fighting In Gaza May Spur Cease-Fire
January 16, 2009 · A day after Israeli tanks pushed deep into the Gaza Strip's most heavily populated areas, officials say cease-fire efforts are gaining momentum. An Israeli negotiator is heading back to Cairo for what one official said could be the "final act." Israel's foreign minister is on her way to Washington seeking help in preventing Hamas from using smuggling tunnels to re-arm link

The assignment is worth 100 points a week. It will be graded on the quality of news source, number of sources, the lede itself, and, of course, how well it is all written.

Questions 5 through 9

Please answer the following questions.

5) What is your favorite color? What is your favorite class? What is your favorite ice cream?

6) Submit this exactly the way you would if it was a paper for class. Title it Question 5.

7) Copy and paste the web address of your Blog into the body of a Gmail email and send it to me.

8) Type anything you want into a Word document and email it as an attachment from Gmail.

9) Leave a comment on my Blog that says "done."

Websites I Use

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/
Fourhourworkweek: The Blog of the Author Timothy Ferris, a life style design site. Site basically covers the thoughts, ideas, projects, and adventures of the author.

http://www.wikipedia.org/
Wiki: The famous and sometimes infamous Wikipedia, an open source encyclopedia for the digiverse. Wiki is a very broad site containing tons of useful and sometimes useless information.

http://dictionary.reference.com/
Dictionary.com is a compilation of several online dictionaries. Dictionary.com is a great place to check spellings, and subtle definitions.

http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/
Gutenberg is the love child of the internet and the printing press. Project Gutenberg has been for several decades collecting all of the worlds “great books” and digitizing them so that everyone has access.

http://www.hulu.com/
Hulu is a great site for the movie and TV addict. Movies and TV shows are posted online for free. This site is a great place to keep up with your favorite shows if you can’t TiVo them.

http://refdesk.com/
Refdesk is an archive site, run totally off of donations. There are links here to almost anything you might want to find on the internet. It’s a little crowded and cluttered, but pretty useful when you get to it.

http://www.cnet.com/
News and product review for the digiophile. Cnet has been around for a while, covering computers, gadgets, software, and all thing techno geek.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/
Mother Earth News covers everything you might want to know about gardening and how to projects. All of the projects are laid out in a pretty straightforward manner.

Website collecting

100 points
Due at the end of class
1/6/2009

During a regular week you are free to choose what type of review you are going to write. There are two exceptions. The last week you must turn in your book review and this being the first week I'd like you to review a website.

If we spend a lot of hands’ on time this week writing your first review it should make writing your other reviews easier.

To get started you need to find five to ten websites you use, or would use if you were on the web a lot. For each website you need to be able to write a couple of sentences describing what the site is. This is called annotating, and it’s so that you can check back later and refresh your memory about what something is.

You can do this either in Google docs, Google notebook, or Word. I would recommend using a combination of all three. Use Google notebook to gather your information, links or anything else you may need from the actual site. Cut and paste this into Word, then organize your ideas into a list of both descriptions and links, then run the grammar and spell check. Once you've done this upload or cut and paste it to your Google docs. Save this copy in your Google docs, making sure to use a name you'll recognize if you need to find it again.

Once you have completed this you should upload the annotated list to your blog as a post. The post should be titled “websites I use.” See my post “Websites I Use” for an example.

Once you’ve posted your blog email your final copy as an attachment. Anything not handed end by the end of class will be considered late. mrmaiorca.trhs@gmail.com

Keep in mind that this is a graded assignment and all the basic conventions of grammar will be applied when I grade them so please use the editors thoroughly. Also remember that the web is a very public place and you shouldn’t post anything that you wouldn’t want you parents or grandparents to read.

Let's get started

Welcome. For the next semester we'll be working on journalism as well as the usual English.

The world is a rapidly changing place and maybe nothing changes as fast as information. Well at least the access to it. Hundreds of years ago news as wells as entertainment was carried from town to town and village to village simply by word of mouth, by men, in the west, called minstrels After the invention of the movable type printing press by Gutenberg in 1439 the "news" changed. People were able to cheaply print what they needed and distribute the information fairly easily. From the ease of information sprang the Renaissance as well as what would become modern journalism.

Since Gutenberg's little invention print has dominated the way people get their information, after all seeing is believing.

It wasn't until Marconi invented radio that this axiom became less that true. With the radio-telegraph, and later the radio we know today, information could travel at the speed of sound. And so could the news. Local cities could pick up news reports from around the world in a matter of seconds, and people no longer had to wait days or even months to find out what was happening.

As you can imagine these two inventions revolutionized how we perceived the world. Other inventions along the way have had their impacts upon the news, television for one, as well as improvements in photograph and sound quality but none of these have had the same impact as an invention most of you have grown up with.

The personal computer and the Internet.The personal computer puts the power of Gutenberg's press in the hands of almost everyone in the Western world, and the Internet can send your stories around the globe faster than Marconi could ever have imagined. You are living in the world that only Science fiction writers could have dreamed of a mere fifty years ago. This is the world you are going to study journalism.

Keeping all of that in mind the next semester should be as technologically challenging as it is academically. We will be completing several different kinds of writing assignments and trying to integrate technology and the web as much as possible into our final products. It's going to be a lot of work, but I think if you give it a fair chance you'll find it rewarding.