Journalism 1

The big change for the 2009-2010 school year is that Journalism 1 has been combined with the newspaper and yearbook classes. This will mean that the students' time will be divided between classroom instruction and actual production work on the publications. The students will be working as photographers and reporters for the newspaper (both the print version and the online version) and as photographers, reporters, and page editors for the yearbook. They will also be learning how to use Adobe InDesign, the premier page construction program, and StudioWorks, the Taylor Publishing Company online yearbook construction program.

The Journalism 1 class may be taken by anyone from a freshman to a senior. The class is designed to train future newspaper or yearbook staffers by giving them the basic journalistic skills they will need to produce quality school publications. Topics covered in the class include journalistic writing, interviewing, editing, standard grammar, media ethics, media history, advertising, typography, feature writing, sports writing, and editorial writing.

The students will do a lot of writing and editing in this class, so even those who are not particularly interested in journalism as a career choice can still improve their writing skills for college or the workplace. Emphasis is always on unambiguous, clear, and concise written communication that is free from grammatical and spelling errors.

Students are taught that journalism is about the pursuit of truth and that the news media have an awesome responsibility in a democracy to keep citizens informed by giving them factual information and not propaganda that promotes a particular ideology.

Students are encouraged to read a newspaper at least once or twice a week and to watch a televised news program every day. Every two weeks a current events quiz will be given to test the students' news knowledge. The students will also do an editing exercise every two weeks (alternating with the current events quiz) to hone their spelling and grammar skills.

For students who need extra help, the instructor will offer tutorial sessions every Friday after school from 2:35 to 4 p.m.