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FYS1 assignments

Writing Samples

Opinion writing

Writing interviews

Newswriting

School News

Covering lectures

Critiquing stories

Reviewing

Reports in class

Doing surveys

Term paper

Media law

Evaluating sources

Critiquing media content

Reporting scandals

Resources for activists

F Newsmagazine

State of the Union 2006

The elections

Race

New Orleans coverage

Lebanon

Some Notes on Doing Class Reports

Don’t write an encyclopedia article. Instead of trying to pack in all the information you can, pick out a few of the more important ideas and focus on them. Take notes on your reading, look the notes over and pick out the more important ideas. Then organize them, taking care to maintain a focus on the most important.

Some questions to ask yourself as you decide what to emphasize:

1. What are the most important things you have learned from doing the reading?
2. How have these things changed the way you understand the subject?
3. What do most people know or believe to be true about the subject?
4. What misconceptions might people have?
5. How can what your’ve learned change the way other think?
6. What is the single most important/valuable/useful thing you can tell us?

Then, write your report up. If you follow these guidelines, your writing will be simple, direct, very useful.

Be sure to indicate your sources at the end, especially if you use sources I didn’t recomment.

When you give your report, don’t read from your paper. Remember, you are giving a short summary of what you have learned and what you want us to think about and discuss, not an encyclopedia article or scholarly article full of details. Insead, give a short, simple report organized around one or two ideas, don’t worry about getting in a lot of details. . You will have your paper and you can refer to it when people ask questions.

I hope many of you take the opportunity to give reports in class. Public speaking is an important skill to develop. Unlike a typical class writing, assignment, a spoken report has you facing your audience, so you think about how to connect with them, how to explain your ideas so they can easily understand them, how to get them to think and rethink their beliefs, ask questions of themselves and you, how to get them to see the importance of our subject. You develop skills in analysing, interpeting, organizing a mass of ideas and facts, putting them together and explaining them. And you gain the experience of talking to an audience.

If you are going to be an artist, you need to be able to talk to gallery owners, collectors, critics about your art. If you are going to be an activist, you need to be able to talk to people who don’t already agree with you.