 |
|||||||
|
|
 |
|
Beginning Journalism is the training ground for advanced journalism, giving the students the necessary skills so they can act independently, something that all teenagers crave. More specifically, students need to take beginning journalism to learn several important skills. First, they learn the basic journalistic writing styles: news, features, reviews, opinion, columns, sports. Second, they learn layout and computer skills so they can lay out a page. Third, they learn how to work as a part of a team. Putting out a newspaper is teamwork. Fourth, they learn how to critique each other's work candidly. This last one is the critical one for forming a learning community. Students need to learn how to effectively critique each other's work, or they will never form effective learning communities. In advanced journalism, they are given the freedom to develop these skills. Without a strong skill base, it is impossible to give them the freedom and responsibility that they want. Beginning journalism prepares students for advanced journalism by providing a model for writing, for corrections, for critiquing and for critical thinking. The teacher provides a model to the students demonstrating all these skills on a daily basis. The following link will illustrate a typical cycle of work in beginning journalism, highlighting the specific
articles learned, the process for writing and feedback, and Esther's thinking behind how she sequences her students' work. A short video demonstrates how Esther introduces an article format. This link describes the importance of learning the basics of layout in beginning journalism and includes a
short video of the PageMaker workshop advanced students lead the beginning students through: Under construction
|
|