An opinion writer is, above all else, a journalist. My student opinion writers like to try to use the school newspaper as a forum to rant about everything they feel is wrong with the world. They don't consider themselves journalists, but rather "opinionated writers." When I return to the classroom. I will stress Templar's idea that "opinion writing should meet every test of a news story." Helping students develop a voice of authority rather than try to be the voice of god will be crucial to my staff next year. Doing this might be difficult since many lack enough experience on "real world" topics to be able to synthesize and offer new perspective on various issues. Of course there are always a few students who assume that they have this experience and are "wise beyond their years." These students on my staff tended to be the most vocal and sought to develop their "voice of god" rather than authority. Although their pieces did gain a following this year, it was probably because they angered more people than they actually informed. By giving them the mission that they must not only form a logical opinion, but also write a newsworthy story, the quality level of the section as a whole will be where it wasn't last year.
Ashley Barnes
Bel Air High School
Bel Air, Md.
Posts
Opinion journalism is persuasive writing. As a journalist, your opinions have more credibility; you have done your research and then you give your conclusions. Your opinions show your readers you live in the real world and you connect with them.
ReplyDeleteOpinions should be newsworthy. When writing an opinion you should choose a topic you are passionate about, explain issues in ways that captures the reader's interest and elicit emotions. Templar suggests to "allow your personality to infuse but not dominate," story always comes first.
A Rosenthal
The Hockaday School
Dallas, Tx
I think a lot of students can't make the switch between angrily venting about a situation and making a logical argument about why things should change. Teaching them to take out the overly strong language and focus on the truth can be difficult, but it's definitely what we need to do.
ReplyDeleteThe "voice of god" term is a very good one because when students have a very strong opinion, they often do think that it is the only right opinion. Counterargument is one of the most difficult elements of persuasion to teach in my regular english classes, but it is clear we will have to address it in journalism as well. In order to get their facts right and their opinions reasoned, they have to know both sides and the "why" behind each side. Once we can get them to understand that, they will hopefully start writing without the "voice of god" behind their words.
Rebecca Jackson
Douglas County High School
Douglasville, Ga.
I have had similar experiences with my students, where they think that the opinions section is for them to express whatever opinion comes to their head. The notion that it has to meet EVERY test of news will be the idea that I discuss closely with my opinions editors in the fall. If I can get them to completely adopt this idea and use the test when editing the stories in their section.
ReplyDeleteOne year I had incredibly advanced opinions editors who demanded that all opinions stories were grounded in a news event, and that year, the opinions stories were very a bit more journalistic than some of the other years.
I am learning an incredible amount of information, and I hope I can translate that into a more journalistic newspaper in the fall.
Jill Bhowmik
Granite Hills High School
El Cajon, Calif.