SAMPLE SYLLABUS

NEWS WRITING

Instructor: Fran Silverman

Class meets:

My office: Donnarumma 141

My office phone: 203 254 4000 ext 2796/ Home 203-840-1171

E-mail: fsilverman@stagweb.fairfield.edu

Office hours:

Welcome to News Writing. This course has three goals:

· To introduce you to a different kind of writing and information presentation that emphasizes clarity, timeliness and accuracy. You will learn how to structure and write a news story in a variety of ways. You will write stories based on in-class press conferences, deadline stories involving speakers on campus, and in-depth, original stories of your own choosing.

· To strengthen your information gathering skills. You will learn how to gather information through interviews, eyewitness accounts, and written and electronic sources. You will collect and present information in a way that is consistent with journalistic ethics, academic honesty and rules on plagiarism.

· To introduce you to the way a journalist thinks and operates. You will talk to working journalists and to sources who deal with journalists on a regular basis. You will better understand how news organizations decide whether a story is newsworthy, how to deal with editors and the editing process, and whether you want to pursue a career in journalism.

While many of the lessons will be set in a newspaper environment, the skills you learn also will benefit you if you are interested in magazine writing, publishing, writing for the Internet, broadcast journalism, public relations, corporate communication, the law, government and politics, and many related areas. This course also will result in improved writing skills (and improved usage of spelling, grammar, punctuation and style) that will aid you in virtually every other class you take in college, especially other English Department writing courses.

As part of your course work, you will be encouraged to submit class stories to The Mirror for publication. Many students emerge from this class with a portfolio of stories that they can use to improve their job-hunting prospects.

Prerequisites: college-level skills in spelling, punctuation, grammar, writing and typing (projected 40 wpm). Familiarity with computer word processing.

Required Materials:

v Itule, B. D. & Anderson, D. A. (2003). News writing and reporting for today's media. (6th Ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

v Itule, B. D. & Anderson, D. A. (2003). Workbook for news writing and reporting for today's media. (6th Ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

v Goldstein, N. (Ed.) AP Stylebook & Libel Manual.

v 2” three-ring binder with formal, tabbed section dividers (your portfolio)

v one ream of inexpensive paper for downloading web pages and making copies of your draft stories

Recommended: any pocket dictionary

Class format. This class will teach you about News Writing in several different ways. They include:

q Reading in the textbook about journalism theory and how to acquire specific skills such as interviewing and packaging a story. It is important that you learn from the experience of the textbook authors and journalists, not just from personal trial and error. You must bring to class in writing the answers to the Review Questions for each chapter in the workbook. You also must become familiar with the basic writing style used by journalists. That's why we use the AP Stylebook.

q Meeting and talking to journalists through guest lectures, in-class press conferences and through a trip to The Connecticut Post, where you will sit in on the daily news meeting.

q Conceptualizing story ideas yourself, gathering information on the topics, writing and rewriting stories, and finally seeing them emerge in a polished form.

We will go back and forth, examining some journalism theory and then applying it to writing, more theory leading to more writing, for the entire semester. It might make more sense to wait until you learn all the theory before you start writing, but by that point the semester will be over.

Much of the course will focus on 7 stories you will write for class.

STORIES 1 and 2 are in-class Press Conference stories, designed to get you used to the journalism format. The hope is you will both learn from the information delivered by the speaker and learn how to select the most newsworthy information and turn it into a story. It’s also a chance to sharpen interviewing skills.

I will bring in guest lecturers who will speak and then entertain questions. You will do a 400 word story on their appearance and e-mail it to me. You also need to attach a reflective essay; details to follow. Your grade will drop two points if you forget the essay.

After I grade and return the story, you will rewrite it once more and create a separate section for it in your portfolio. Place the rewritten version on top, then my graded version, then earlier drafts you have.

STORIES 3 and 4 are Deadline Stories of your own choosing. They should be events -- lectures, meetings, speeches, celebrity appearances -- that you can cover in a single day or night, immediately write up a story (without additional reporting) and submit it (via e-mail) for a grade by 9 a.m. the next day.

The experience is designed to give you a taste of writing under deadline pressure, while allowing you to pick a topic you will enjoy writing about. You also will interview several participants or audience members and include comments from at least two of them in the story. I encourage you to bounce the story idea off me ahead of time. You can cover additional deadline stor