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teaching with writing
journalism assignments
Effective
assignments are those that have explicit connections to a course's
learning objectives, and that clearly articulate the purpose
for writing, the target audience, a schedule of deadlines,
and specific criteria for success. Assignments appropriate
for journalism courses will vary depending on the focus of
the course, but many courses start with writing assignments
that highlight meticulous research and move toward projects
that consider audience, along with projects that integrate
and synthesize form and content.
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Magazine Writing, Article
Specifications: a set of specifications for written
article assignments requiring students to give attention
to the story's angle, theme, audience, evidence, lead,
closing, and other attributes.
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Magazine Writing, Gender
Point of View Exercise: Write a Narrative: an assignment
geared toward challenging students their notions of gender
by asking them to imagine themselves in different situations.
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Writing for Mass Media, Analysis
of "Must Read Journalists": a series of writing
assignments asking students to evaluate notable columnists'
writing. A hypertext list of writers is provided.
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Literary Aspects of Journalism: an upper-level course in
which students trace the history of literary nonfiction with
the following assignments:
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The "Scholasticus" Review: a
class review.
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Travel: an
assignment that focuses on the symbolic qualities of
observed experience.
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Bar Study: an
assignment about distinctiveness, difference, culture
that requires students to discover the key elements that
make a place special.
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Literary
Analysis: an assignment requiring students to analyze
a literary work. A set of questions is provided to
students to help with their analyses.
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Memoir: an
assignment that challenges students to find the significance
of an episode in their lives.
journalism assignment resources
- Writing
Across the Media: a comprehensive teaching package taking
an integrated approach to media writing, emphasizing the
fundamental writing skills required by all media and showing
the similarities and differences in applying those skills
to different media formats. Explanatory content, activities,
and samples are available on this Web site.
- CourseLib:
a service provided by University of Minnesota librarians that
enables instructors to build and post customized, course-specific
research pages.
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