Stormy Morelli-JMC Overview

Writing for Mass Media is a three hour introductory journalism course that teaches students the fundamentals for writing in one of the many media outlets. The class is broken into two sections, a lecture and a lab. This creates an easier way to learn the basic skills of many types of journalistic writings.

The lecture is designed to help students to learn where these different writings are most useful. Students will also learn many reasons for why journalists need to use different styles. The students receive grades in lecture from quizzes and tests. Quizzes are given almost everyday at the beginning of class and last 10 minutes. They are over readings that should be finished before the particular lecture. There are three tests in this class, separated equally throughout the semester. The tests cover everything that has been covered up to that point. The quizzes and tests are both 25% of the total grade for the course.

The lab is designed to teach students the proper way to use the different writing styles. It starts by helping students learn the fundamentals of all journalistic writing, then it coaches them on how to write in the different fields of journalism. The lab is graded on the many assignments that the students do in the lab. The lab consists of half of the total grade in the course.

The main goal of the class is to help students learn what field they want to go in to. It does this by having students practice different types of media writing to let the student figure out what they enjoy the best.