Spring 2009: Wednesdays 2-5 pm, Jackson Hall 113
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We experience mass media more often than we might like to admit. When we listen to music, watch films or television, hear the State of the Union address, or write papers using internet research, we seek guidance from mass media. When we get the news or weather updates, grab a magazine for a long flight, pick up the mail and get yet another personalized invitation to Columbia's DVD club, or just walk across to Strawn's and pass a handful of billboards, we are under the influence of mass media. Here we study and practice that mass media writing.
While we especially hone magazine and newspaper writing skills here, we will also think on media outlets like radio, the internet, television, film, public relations, and advertising (all of which you might pursue further in other courses). As we read contemporary examples, think on ethical issues, and try the various genres under research and deadline pressures, we will ever revise for stylistic excellence. Thus, the writing practice this course affords should diversify well the portfolios of students pursuing professional writing careers.
Purchase the following required book from the college bookstore:
Consider the following recommended books as well:
Because this class aims to cover a wide range of genres and subjects, you will carry much of its responsibility by bringing current events and trends to our attention and applying your own outside reading to our common readings. You will also write for the mass media during almost every class period, and your grade will reflect your participation in and accomplishment of those exercises. So come to class prepared and on time, practicing good reading and writing and listening and speaking skills.
Plan to enjoy a regular diet of mass media in order to participate well in class. Watch television, listen to radio, read the newspaper and various magazines, surf the web, listen to speeches, observe advertising and promotions; move outside your usual genres or formats often, and stay current with whatever seems most newsworthy at any given moment. Use your observations to enter class discussions, making connections between them and our class reading and writing.
Develop particular expertise in one area by acting like a beat reporter, experiencing your one chosen beat broadly (local, regional, national, international) across the media (print, online, radio, television, books, advertising, PR, etc). The goal: observe media trends in subject matter and manner of coverage. The tasks: weekly beat reports (15% of the final grade) and one beat report analysis (10% of the final grade).
We will practice various mass media genres in multiple drafts: make a habit of keeping brief notes on subjects that interest you so that you might mine them when the assignments come due. You will submit initial drafts of a newspaper article, reporter interview in magazine layout, radio essay, public service announcement, speech, restaurant review, and sports commentary; during the semester, you will also workshop and then revise three of those pieces.
All drafts will receive grades that generally represent timeliness, correctness (form and grammar), stylistic sensitivity, creativity (of subject and presentation), and functionality (usefulness). Each draft and revision (10 in all) will represent 10% of the "writing drafts" portion of the final grade. Submit all drafts in hard copy with the handwritten, dated, and signed honor code if the work you submit is original and your own, as is everyone else's so far as you know.
Submit final revisions of all your writing drafts as a final portfolio. Begin this portfolio with a 2- to 4-page introduction discussing the craft of revision as it pertains to mass media writing and how you see the portfolio as a piece that could have a life past this class, perhaps in terms of publication or job/internship/graduate applications. Create a professional layout for your portfolio using Adobe InDesign, and submit it electronically as a pdf no later than the end of our final exam period.
Your final grade (A = 100-90, B = 89-80, C = 79-70, D = 69-60, F = 59-0) divides into these categories:
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