100W
List of Assignments
1.
All About Me (250 words):
write in class and e-mail to instructor.
2.
Journal Writing #1 – Your Favorite Writing:
Select a short piece of writing you enjoy and admire, and
write about 100 words explaining why you like this piece and
why you think it's an example of good writing. It can be any
kind of writing: news, fiction, non-fiction, ad copy, poetry
-- whatever appeals to you. Be sure to list source information
to identify your piece of writing, including: the author,
the title of the book or publication in which it appeared,
page number, and date of publication.
3.
Resume & Cover Letter: Scan internship or employment listings (newspaper,
monster.com, craigslist.com) for the kind of job you'd for
this summer or when you graduate. Write a cover letter (approx.
150 words) and one-page resume applying for the most interesting
position. Staple a copy of your want ad to your letter and
resume.
4. Library
Scavenger Hunt (500 words; link
to details of this assignment)
5.
Fact-Checking:
For this assignment, you will serve as a fact
checker, using the 2004 Los
Angeles Times article, Infinite
Ingress. Here's the
scenario: In light of the current debates over immigration,
your editor has asked you to fact-check and update this article.
Start by critically reading the news story and highlighting
key facts that you think need to be checked. Then locate primary
sources for the key facts in this article and determine if
they need to be updated. For your report to your editor, list
key facts from this story that will need to be updated, and
provide the current information and the primary source of
that information. (Note: you will use some of this information
when you write a persuasive opinion piece on the immigration
issue a little later in the semester.)
7.
Enterprise Article: (300-500 words) This will be your
published piece for the semester. It can be a short feature
or news story, an opinion piece, or a movie, game or restaurant
review. For this piece, you will need to come up with a topic
and identify a target publication, write a query letter/e-mail
to the editor of your target publication, and write your story.
You'll have a chance to pitch your story idea to a guest editor
in class. To successfully complete this assignment, you must
get your article published in an appropriate print or online
publication (not including personal blogs or personal web
pages), such as the Spartan
Daily, Access magazine, and area newspapers
and magazines.
8.
Journal #2 - Media Audiences: Compare the news coverage
of a national news story by examining its same-day coverage
in different media (compare at least three), as follows (250-350
words):
a.
Newspaper:
How long is/are the article(s) on this issues? How many sources
are quoted? How many articles are there? Are the stories accompanied
by charts, graphs or photos?
b.
Television News: How
many minutes is the story? How many sources are quoted? How
does the detail provided on television news compare to the
newspaper?
c.
National Public Radio or another radio
program that includes national news: How many minutes
is the story? How many sources are quoted? How is the coverage
on radio and television similar? How are they different? How
does the radio story use background sound and/or interviews
to change "the scene" in the listener's mind.
d.
Web:
How does online news coverage of this issue compare? How long
is the story? How many sources? Is it more like print or broadcast
coverage? Or different from both?
9.
Term
Paper: This feature, profile or trend story is your
major outside writing project for this class; you must successfully
complete this assignment to pass the class. This project includes
three deliverables: a pitch letter or proposal; a research
memo or folder; and the final product, your feature or trend
story. Click here for the details
of this assignment.
10. Scholarly
journal article summaries (two @ 250 words each): Locate
and photocopy a scholarly article of at least eight pages
or more, preferably on a topic that interests you (even better,
find articles that are related to your term paper so you can
use them for that assignment too). Be sure the article is
not a review or summary, since that is what we're asking you
to do. Read each article and summarize it in your own words.
Staple your photocopy of the original article (or the first
few pages of it, for long articles) to your summary.
11. STD
News Story & Press Release (400 words total): using
the same set of facts, write a one-page news story
12. Journal
#3 - NPR Radio interview analysis (250-350 words): Listen
to an interview on an NPR program such as Fresh
Air or All
Things Considered. Your instructor will give you a
choice of two or three interviews; pick the one you like best
and write an analysis of it. In your analysis, please consider
the following:
What did the interviewer know about the subject before the
interview?
What
kinds of questions did they ask?
How
did they build up to questions? How did they follow up to
questions?
Did
the interviewer appear to have a strategy?
How
were inadequate answers (if any) handled?
What
was the apparent relationship between the interviewer and
interviewee?
What
did you learn about interviewing from this interview?
13.
14. Journal
Writing #4 - Mystery
Character (100-150 words): Your mystery character
can be any well-known entertainer, athlete or politician --
someone living or dead -- even fictional. The catch? You must
describe your mystery character without actually
saying who it is. Instead, make your description do the work
by using telling details that will help readers recognize
your character from your description alone. You may want to
show how your character moves, sounds, gestures, talks, dresses
-- focus on whatever you think are the most telling details
about that person. Omit any personal or professional information
that would be a "dead giveaway" for this person.
Remember this is supposed to be description, not a biography.
15. Journal
#5 - Fish Out of Water (350-500 words): Attend a political,
cultural, or social event focused on a racial/ethnic group
to which you do not belong, and write a critical review of
the event, including an analysis of the experience of being
an outsider. Consult the Spartan Daily, local newspapers,
bulletin boards, etc., for free events. You may attend with
another student, but you should each write your own review.
Describe the event and its impact on you; analyze your participation/observation
as an outsider to this culture. By definition, reviews are
subjective – it's your opinion. However, a review should
include a summary of the event so the reader can learn about
the event as well as the author's response to it.
16.
Journal #6 - Targeting Audiences (250-350 words): Find
two full-page advertisements in a magazine (include a copy
of each in your journal), and use the following factors to
analyze it.
a.
Study the ads and try to describe
the intended target audience's demographics: age, gender,
occupation, education level, income, marital status. Based
on the ads, describe the target audience's lifestyles, attitudes
and values.
b.
Next, describe each advertisement's
key message. Is it information rich and directed at an involved
audience, or does it feature peripheral qualities, such as
graphics or pictures, to attract a less-involved audience?
Is there a source (celebrity or expert) in the advertisement?
If so, why do you think the source might influence the target
audience?
17. Retarget
Ad Copy: Choose one of the magazine ads you analyzed for
Journal #6 and retarget the ad copy for a completely different
audience. For example, rework a Banana Republic clothing ad
in Elle for Maxim, or an iPod ad in MacWorld for Newsweek.
18. Broadcast
Presentation (200 words = approx. 1-1/2 minutes): You'll
work in pairs to prepare an an existing feature story for
broadcast. You'll need a teaser, a sound bite, a 30-second
advertisement, and a short news story. You'll present your
story to the class. It needs to "sound" like a story
we'd hear on a TV news show such as Dateline or 48
Hours. You can use cue cards and visual aids to enhance
your broadcast.
19. Web Writing
(500 words): Edit a fairy tale for the web. In this exercise,
you'll break up a well-known children's story into web-sized
"chunks" of "linked pages." You'll include
graphics/art and links to additional resources/information
as appropriate. (Your instructor will provide a link to the
fairy tale and instructions in class, or may instruct you
to use these two links: 1)
Little Red, and 2)
directions for this assignment.)
20. Japanese
Internment library research (500 words): Before the field
trip to the Japanese Internment Memorial, you'll need to answer
the following questions:
What was the Japanese
Internment and why did it happen? Who is Ruth Asawa?
What happened
locally (San Jose) during the internment? How did SJSU factor
in?
Correlation
exercise: Could it happen again? Is there a correlation
between the Japanese Internment and what's happened since
9-11?
21. Japanese
Internment Memorial vignettes paper (250-350 words): During
the field trip, take careful notes on the vignettes at the
memorial. Afterward, write a paper explaining the significance
of two or three of the memorial's vignettes that you found
most compelling.
Scheduled Presentations:
Broadcast feature; fairy tales for the web; broadcast version
of term paper