Reporting and Reading Assignments

Thursday, August 26, 1999:

Chapter 6 on "Seeing the Obvious" in Donald Murray's Writing for Your Readers--on reserve in Cowles Library. Chapters 1,2 and 3 in Hugh Winebrenner's The Iowa Precinct Caucuses. Pages 14-15 on "Composting" in Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones.

Familiarize yourself with the case studies on "GOP Straw Poll in Ames" and "George W. Bush and the Media Questions About Drugs."

Discussion of points made in Murray's "Seeing the Obvious." Link discussion to the reporting-writing process. Work at the computers using the Internet version of the Iowa Official Register as a guide to state agencies; develop ideas for your first feature stories on state government activities.

Tuesday, August 31, 1999:

Discussion of the GOP straw poll and of George W. Bush and the media questions about drugs. Review Winebrenner's points in the first three chapters concerning the Iowa caucuses. Talk about story possibilities to fulfill the three required stories on the presidential nomination races in Iowa. More discussion of "backgrounding."

Thursday, September 2, 1999:

Your first story idea for a state governmental feature and/or news story should be formalized by classtime. Reading for today is in Don Murray's Writing for Your Readers--Chapter 11 on "Leading With the Lead"--and in Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones--pages 70-71 on "Be Specific" and pages 52-54 "On Listening."

Tuesday, September 7, 1999:

Continue your reading in Winebrenner's The Iowa Precinct Caucuses as a way of backgounding yourself on the history and politics of the process. Read Chapters 4 and 5, and be prepared to do an in-class writing assignment on the first five chapters. Also, bring to class the Monday and Tuesday copies of The New York Times.

Thursday, September 9, 1999:

Bring to class the Wednesday and Thursday copies of The New York Times.

Tuesday, September 14, 1999:

Open lab for working on first stories.

Thursday, September 16, 1999:

First stories due at classtime, two copies please. In class, we'll work on story idea possibilities for second features from state and federal agencies. Also, be prepared to use Writing Down the Bones for an in-class assignment.

Tuesday, September 21, 1999:

Bring to class the Monday and Tuesday copies of The New York Times. Also, you'll need Writing Down the Bones. Ideas for your second stories are due at classtime.

Work in class on the E&P Interactive site on the Internet--reading three pieces by Steve Outing on "What is 'Internet Content'?"; "Old Media Needs to Hear More Pure-New-Media Thinking" and "Internet Content Tips From the Pure-New-Media Crowd." We'll have a class discussion on your findings.

Thursday, September 23, 1999:

Using seven assigned stories from the Wednesday and Thursday editions of The New York Times, write 10 lines for each story on how you could localize a spinoff from each story's subject in the the state of Iowa, using state agencies as a resource.

Some students will begin working with Dreamweaver to post class stories on the CyberCaucus 2000 site on the World Wide Web.

Tuesday, September 28, 1999:

Check at least six different media sites on the Internet to see how staffers handled two key political stories--John McCain formally entering the race for the Republican presidential nomination and Dan Quayle dropping out. Class discussion.

More work on posting student stories on the Internet.

Thursday, September 30, 1999:

Read the Los Angeles Times and ABCnews.com stories on the Internet concerning Gary Bauer's press conference to deny adultery allegations. See whether other national media covered the story--and how they did it. The subject for subsequent class discussion is how you would handle such allegations in a political story. Would you have covered the press conference? Would you have written a story? What would the story say?

Continue work on CyberCaucus 2000 and our new site on the World Wide Web--"digitalIowa."