Journalism Course Outline
Objectives: Students will learn aspects of the journalism business such as news, feature and opinion writing; layout and production; news photography; the history of publication in America; the legal basis of publishing and the skills of interviewing.
Activities:
Reading the news: Students will read and respond, daily, to articles in the Oakland Tribune and other newspapers as they become available.
Legal basis and ethics: The student will study and learn the important legal decisions affecting news writing generally and high school news writing in particular.
Photography: Students will photograph events on the Skyline campus and process the photos for publication.
Newspaper writing: Students will study and learn the basics of news writing, writing the lead, using the inverted pyramid, properly using quotations and applying the 5 W’s and H. Each will practice writing, proofreading and editing skills prior to publication. Sports writing will be emphasized. Students will practice the basics of feature and editorial writing by discovering, interviewing, organizing, writing, editing, rewriting and publishing both types of articles.
Historical perspectives: Students will research the history of newspapers and journalists and report orally and in writing to the class. Computer presentations are encouraged.
Class publication: After preliminary work of news writing, interviewing, photographing and forming an ethical position, each student will participate in producing a class publication using MS Word or other formatting programs.
Web publication: Subsequent to the ‘class publication’ each student will prepare a web page article, news, feature or opinion, to be published on the class web site.
May Oracle: The class under the supervision of the Skyline Oracle editor, will write and produce the May edition of the Oracle. Over 3,000 copies will be distributed.
Daily Schedule: Tracking the news – reading the Oakland Tribune (15 minutes) Lecture – infrequent lecture on law, news writing, photography OR writing work –writing exercises, news writing exercises, editing OR production work – writing articles, doing layout, photographing subjects and more. Thursdays will be devoted to writing style exercises during the first semester.
