For more than 20 years, Theresa Walsh Giarrusso has taught students how to write like journalists. She has worked with elementary students through college students helping them craft stories for publication in daily newspapers and online. The class has been created for an eight-week session but can be tailored for groups who want to examine one genre.
This class will focus on:
Inverted Pyramid — The history behind the style, why it’s useful even today to journalists and readers and how to prioritize facts to write in inverted style. The students will love being reporters in a mock news conference to practice their interviewing and writing skills.
Profiles — The kids will interview each other and write profiles of the other students. The students will work on not just listing facts about a person but creating a cohesive story about the person.
Reviews — Kids love to share their opinions about all things, and the class will teach them how to support their opinions with facts. They will learn the essential elements required for a review as well as how to compare and contrast.
Giarrusso will teach the kids how to write, edit and publish in WordPress. The kids can create a class online newspaper to showcase their work.
The skills learned in this class can help students become tighter, more descriptive writers for any type of writing. These skills are transferable in their lives.
Who Says Media 