Blog #5

What did you expect when you first entered the class? Has the class gone with or against these expectations? What information, practice, or skill has been the most valuable to you? What class activities helped? What information, practice, or skill has been least vauable to you? What class activities did not help? What are you most excited for when we start next quarter? what are you most anxious about? What has left you unfulfilled? In other words, what do you wish we had done as a class but didn't? What would you like more information about, or practice with?

When i first entered the class i thought that it would be all about journalism such as writing articles, piecing things together, giving good interviews and things like that. The class has gone with my expectations, and we also talked about things i didn't expect we would, such as learning about leads and bias's. The practice that is most valuable to me is writing reviews and editorials because those arethe two things that we're probably going to be focusing on in the class. The practice that was least valuable was the "This-I-Believe" essays because i didn't see how they related to the class. Writing practice editorials and reviews really helped because they helped me to get an idea of the feel of each piece. Once again, the This-I-Believe piece didn't really help with anything. Next quarter I am excited AND anxious about starting the actual online magazine because now everyone will be reading what I write and will be able to judge. I felt in class we could have taken an extra day to talk about our strengths and weaknesses as writers and what we enjoy writing about because i think it would give everyone a better understanding of each other.

Blog #4

When writing articles for the Tower Review, what will be more important to consider? What do you think will be the easiest part of the process? What do you anticipate being most difficult? How can you combat these concerns? Discuss your understanding of the newspaper article format am the incorporation of that information for the purpose of the class.

My understanding of the newspaper article format is that you need to include the who, what, when, where, why and how. You also need to give the reader a clear explanation of whats going on. Your view cannot be biased and it should have a catchy lead that draws the reader in. This information applies to the class because we need to have catchy and informative articles in order to gain a readership, and we can't be biased in some of our topics because it could upset students and/or teachers. The most important thing to consider when we are writing for the Tower Review will be that we have to include the five W's and the how. Another important thing will be looking over the article and taking the bias out of it, even if you feel strongly about a certain topic. The easiest part of the process will probably be picking a topic to write about. The hardest part will be going about gathering information and getting interviews for the article. We can combat these concerns by asking the subjects for interviewing nicely and respect them if they say no.