Rees 1

Stephanie Rees

Dr. George Sylvie

Scholastic Journalism

1 August 2011

ASNE Reynolds Institute Lesson Plans

The world of journalism is drastically changing, and students need to be prepared to function in the new realities. They need to understand the basic tenets of journalism that will not change no matter the medium. Students need to know what it means to tell a story both with words and pictures and they need to be curious enough to find the story. These are some of the principles that guide my journalism instruction.

I teach in an environment that unfortunately today is all too common – low income neighborhood, limited access to technology, limited knowledge about society, etc. My high school just recently met Title I standards with over 80% of students on free or reduced lunch. A highlight is that while traditionally this means test scores are getting lower, my high school is seeing an increase in test scores.

What does that mean for teaching journalism? It means that when my students are challenged, they rise to meet the expectations, which makes for a great teaching environment. The school has not had a newspaper for over 10 years, so I am starting from the very beginning. Because the high school exit exam includes a writing test, most students are decent writers. However, most have not been exposed to journalistic writing. As a result, in order to begin a newspaper, I must begin by teaching my students how to write journalistically.

Also, while the yearbook program has remained strong, the lack of a J1 course has kept students from being exposed to good design. Now that J1 has been put back into the schedule, most students have to start at the very beginning of design, especially knowing where to get ideas and how to use the technology available to them.

The following two lesson plans focus on a basic introduction to both design and news writing. As a yearbook teacher, I know that the layout of a paper or website has everything to do with whether or not students will read the information. Also, I know that if the writing lacks interesting topics, students will quickly quit reading. With these two ideas in mind, students who are new to journalism need to be introduced to these concepts quickly and need to grasp their importance early.

As a yearbook adviser of seven yearbooks, I have never really doubted my ability to teach design. However, since I did not receive journalistic writing instruction in my schooling, I recognize a huge gap in my ability to teach J1. Thanks to the ASNE Reynolds Institute, I have the confidence to take on the J1 classroom in the fall. The influence of institute can be seen in the following lesson plans. Janet Elbom’s lesson on critiquing taught me a practical method to expose students to excellent work. I also feel it is important to use other high school students’ work as the examples to show students what they are capable of. Also, Cindy Todd and Jeanne Acton provided wonderful PowerPoints that will be very helpful to guide my students. Because these women are or have been teachers, they knew exactly what I needed to teach my students.

These lessons on design and writing are very basic and similar in set up. However, they reflect the level of my students’ needs. We are starting from the very beginning, and these lessons are designed with that in mind.

Lesson Plan #1:

  1. The Institute session source as relevant: Design, Cindy Todd, WestLakeHillsHigh School; Critiquing, Janet Elbom, LASA Academy/LBJ High School
  2. Key theme, topic of unit: Introduction to Basic Design
  3. Overview and rationale for unit: The design unit will focus on basic design strategies and exposure to Adobe InDesign. Students today need to enter the journalism world with a working knowledge of how to layout a paper to guide the readers’eyes and the technology tools to accomplish that design.
  4. Goals for understanding: Students will be able to recognize layouts that are both readable and visually attractive – both in commercial medias and their own work. Students will be able to adapt layouts from commercial media for their own purposes.
  • Essential Questions: What is good design?
  • Critical Engagement Questions: What is dominance and what information should be dominant? What is the importance of eye flow? What is the balance between variety and repetition?
  1. Activities (Performances of understanding):
  • Break students into groups of 4-5, and provide groups with various student and commercial publications (yearbooks/newspapers/magazines). Ask students to identify 5 elements that they like and 3 elements they do not care for. Have students share these ideas on chart paper, sticky notes, whiteboard (whatever is a preferred method of brainstorming).
  • From the brainstorming session, begin a discussion of how the layout designers accomplished the layout (powerpoint on design techniques would be helpful here).
  • Have the groups identify the design techniques used in the commercial/student publication from the previous activity. The groups should then go back to their design elements that they liked from the brainstorming session, and identify how the design techniques were used in those elements. Students will share what they discover.
  1. Assessment:
  • Students will identify a commercial news/magazine layout that reflects the design techniques discussed in class and recreate the layout using InDesign. Students will need to provide an explanation of how the design techniques used resulted in a readable, but visually attractive layout.
  1. Recommended readings and sources
  • timharrower.com
  • Lundgren, Gary. “A Designer’s Dozen.” adviser & staff Fall 2006: 7-12. Print.
  • Jostens – Yearbook Advisers Classroom Tools: As a yearbook advisor, I use1,2,3 Yearbook Journalism Curriculum regularly.
  1. Contact: Stephanie Rees, BereaHigh School, Greenville, SC

Lesson Plan #2:

  1. The Institute session source as relevant: News Writing, Jeanne Acton, UIL/UT-Austin; Critiquing, Janet Elbom, LASA Academy/LBJ High School
  2. Key theme, topic of unit: Introduction to News Writing
  3. Overview and rationale for unit: The unit will focus on the basics of news writing at an introductory level. It will introduce students to the inverted pyramid, leads, the 5Ws and H, and the transition/quote writing format.
  4. Goals for understanding:Students will be able to identify a news story from a feature or editorial. Student will be able to use the transition/quote formula to write a news story.
  5. Essential Questions: What makes up a news story?
  6. Critical Engagement Questions: What is a lead? What information is most important? What is the transition/quote format?
  7. Activities (Performances of understanding):
  8. Break students into groups of 4-5, and provide groups with various student articles – combination of news, features, and editorials. Ask students to identify some similarities and differences. Have students share these ideas on chart paper, sticky notes, whiteboard (whatever is a preferred method of brainstorming). See if students can identify the news stories.
  9. From the news stories, have the students begin to identify what they think makes the news stories different from the features and editorials. Again, begin a brainstorming list of the qualities the students identify.
  10. From the brainstorming session, begin a discussion of what a news story is and how it is structured (powerpoint on news writing would be helpful here – see resources at UILTexas).
  11. Have the groups identify the elements of news writing in the news story they have been working with. Students will share what they discover.
  12. Assessment:
  • Students will then chose a friend from the class (preferably one they do not know too well) and write a news article on that student. They need to look for the story that is worth telling. (Note: Students may need an interviewing lesson before doing this activity). Students will turn in a rough draft of their article to be edited and re-written.
  1. Recommended readings and sources
  • Journalism – University Interscholastic League – provides PowerPoints and other resource for writing
  • JEA.org – provides some ideas to teach copy editing
  • Jostens – Yearbook Advisers Classroom Tools: As a yearbook advisor, I use 1,2,3 Yearbook Journalism Curriculum regularly, and I plan to incorporate The Radical Write into my J1 class this fall.
  1. Contact: Stephanie Rees, BereaHigh School, Greenville, SC