Vanden High School Journalism Course
Taught by Ms. Julie Russo Kumler - School Librarian
Syllabus
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Grading Categories & Weights:
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Articles, Portfolios, & Projects: 60%
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Classwork/Homework: 30%
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Participation & Digital Citizenship: 10%
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Course policies: Distance Learning presents a variety of challenges. Ms. Negin wants every student to succeed. Students and parents should communicate early and often about any struggles they are experiencing with the course material, work, and technology.
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All work will be assigned and turned in through Google Classroom.
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Late Work
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Late homework and classwork is accepted for half credit as long as it is turned in 1 day after the original due date. After 1 school day, students may no longer turn in the missing assignment.
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Late work will not be accepted if it is incomplete.
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Incomplete work will not earn credit.
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Handwritten Work: Attach all handwritten work as legible PDFs or as high quality photos to appropriate assignment in Google Classroom.
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All school rules will be enforced, including policies regarding attendance, dress-code and academic dishonesty. Students who do not display appropriate behavior in a digital setting will be asked to leave until they meet the school-wide expectations. Please see this grid for more information.
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Helpful Materials
Here you will find resources that will help you through every step of the reporting process and help you craft effective articles. You can find specific tips for each section of the paper and general reporting and writing resources below.
News Resources
- Mentor Texts: News articles that are well-written and show how to organize and write the article.
- Organizing Straight News: Tips for using the Inverted Pyramid and other ideas for writing a straight news article.
Features Resources
- General Tips: A document and a presentation with general tips and guidlines for writing style, organization, and information for features articles.
- Profile Piece Mentor Texts: Four articles that are well-written examples of profile pieces.
- Types of Leads: A Google Slides Presentation with definitions of the types of leads you can use in features writing and links to articles that use those leads.
Sports Resources
- Going for Active, Accurate Sports Coverage: A document with general tips and tricks for writing strong sports stories.
- Effective Excerpts from Mike Tomlin article: A document with quotes from an article about Steelers' coach Mike Tomlin with students' comments about what makes those passages effective.
- Sports Mentor Texts: