Day 9: First interview, check-ins, practice writing

1. First interview due. Check in with editors/Mary. Where is article headed? What's going on? Who is next on your list? How did interview go? What went well? What lessons can you take to next interview?
2. Group questions, interviews, ideas that need teasing out?
3. Practice writing.

HW: Brief #2 (Upload before class!)

Check-in groups
1. Henry, Leo, Bella, William
2. Sarah, Josh, Rachel, Navi, Caroline
3. Mary, Kellen, Kaitlin, Dorothy, Lije

Day 8: posting briefs and interviews and more

1. Is your brief done? How did it go?
2. Login to your MA account and find your username and password for mavoice.org
3. How do we upload?
4. Interviews for main article. Who should be the prime sources? Who are the experts?
5. As time permits ... a little practice.

Day 7: Articles and briefs

1. Tighten up article ideas, conflicts, guiding questions. Who are your prime sources? What questions do you ask?
2. News briefs ...

Briefs that we like:

1. Talks with Tom

2. Game of the Week

3. Mythbusters

4. Tiny Desk Concert/Mini Music Concert

5. Sports Roundup of the Week - looking forward

6. Visual Arts Piece of the Week

7. Instagram (w/ blog)

Briefs that we would like to have this year:

- News of the Week (video // 2 people)

- Sports news of the week (games won/lost, star players, etc.)

- What’s happening at MA (any news involving the community)

- Extracurriculars (club news, opportunities at MA, etc.)

- Any important announcements regarding the upcoming week

- Infographic of the week

- Should be relevant (example of one that’s not:

https://magic.piktochart.com/output/6275948-shoes)

- When the “other” category is larger than all others, think of a creative way to not show

that category (eg. “brands that yielded three or less responses in the survey were

not included in this graph”)

Day 6: Review news briefs, tighten up articles, assign news briefs

1. Sarah & Henry -- collect and comment on news briefs.
2. Class ... tighten up articles. What's your guiding question? What are you looking at? What might the conflict be? Must-get interviews? (one interview is due on Tuesday!)
3. News briefs. Review the ones we want to cover and then fill in. First brief due on Thursday.

Day 5: Review editors' document & article assigning

1. Review editors' notes on previous semesters and ideas

2. First article ideas for Spring 2016

3. Let's assign articles (first interview is due on Tuesday)

4. Reminder on homework: you're writing a news brief. That means a 250 word article with minimum 1 in-person source or a timely event somehow connected to MA.

Day 4: Review homework and Editors insights

• Large group --> elements of a good news article?

• Working in groups, review each other's articles? What did you/your partner do well? What big style things did you learn? How can you improve your work for the next time?

• Information from Sarah ... highlights, lowlights, dos and don'ts.

• Solo work (as time permits): Write another practice news piece from handout. 40 minutes to execute and print.

Day 3: News story structure & article ideas

1. Review homework and connections between world stories and MA.
2. Review of news story structure
3. Use one homework article and label LQTQ structure
4. Look at rubric
5. Practice new stories // review with editors

Day 2: What makes news?

Review news article --> with a partner, share your news article. Why is your article newsworthy? What did you learn? How many sources were there?

1. What makes news news? A quick video. What elements go into making something news?

2. Short powerpoint.

3. Use news websites to find examples of each news value term. You can work in partners. Share out as class.

4. What would be some ideas for news stories on campus?

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Sarah, Henry, Lije --> go through the fall semester and the last two years. What have been the top stories reported? What articles stood out and why? Any graphics that can be used as models of excellence? What topics might we want to look at?

Day 1: We begin. What is news?

1. Name a celebrity.
2. “How do you know about this person?” (What news sources have you used to learn about this person?)
3. “What makes something news?” (What's the news of the day? What's important to you right now? Important on local, state, national, international level?)

Powerpoint!

Complete News or Not News Handout. Discuss

For other pieces, please read this news and this opinion piece. Take note of facts and opinion statements in both pieces as supporting evidence. Are there facts and opinions in both? Why or why not?