Make-Up Current Quiz Opportunity

If you would like to make up a missing or low current events quiz grade for this six weeks, this is how you can do it.

Read five articles in any edition of the Austin American-Statesman this week then write five article summaries that do the following.

1. Summarize the content of the article including the 5 W’s and the H (Who, What, When, Where, Why and How).
2. Why is the story significant? Why is it important for readers to know?
3. What are the sources of information in the story? Are these sources credible? Is the story balanced?
4. What unanswered questions do you have after reading the article?
5. Did you think this was a good article? Why or why not?

Submit by this Friday or sooner if you want to be my friend.  I do have to grade this.

MAJOR COLUMN OPPORTUNITY

Time To Write and Develop a Complete Column

I am going to give you class time to research and write this, and it is without question the most fun type of writing you will ever do, so please keep the complaining down to dull roar.

Your last assignment for the six weeks and the semester is to write a column and supply the complementary parts specified below.

Your column should

-          Have a clear, strong point or argument

-          Be unmistakable written in your voice (tone, style, attitude)

-          Have at least three support arguments that are structured purposefully

-          Have a concession in which you acknowledge and counter an argument against your point or argument

-          Have an effective lead and conclusion

-          Include the following complementary parts

o   A mug shot that echoes the voice/tone/style/attitude you want the column to convey

o   A name for the column that would be published with each installment of the column

o   A headline the presents the angle and point of the column and also grabs the reader’s attention

o   A cartoon that conveys visually the same point or argument that the column conveys

This is a  MAJOR grade.  So it will effectively be 50 percent of your six weeks grade, which makes sense to me since it encapsulates everything we have worked on this grading period.

Final Exam Topics

I wanted to give you a list of topics that will be covered on the final exam so that you can start pulling together your notes to study.  Here's what we have covered:

Columns
Editorial
Opinion Page
Op-Ed Page
Headlines
Attribution
Writing Leads
News Story Structure
Interviewing
Research and Reporting
News Values

These of course are big topics with lots of specific information for each topic, but the final will pull from these areas, so you should start looking over your notes for these topics.

The final, in case you don't know, is Thursday, Dec. 17, starting at 11:10 a.m.

New York Times publishes first front-page editorial since 1920

The New York Times did something on Saturday that it has not done since 1920: run an editorial on the front page.

Here's the editorial.

You can probably guess what it's about.  We will talk about it in class tomorrow, but I thought you might want to check it out before class.

Here's what the front page looked like.