Participating teachers were engrossed in an activity that allowed them to use Steve Elliot’s enlightening lecture on effective interviewing techniques. Fellows were told that they were reporters at a local paper in Anywhere, USA. An explosion had occurred at the U.S. District Courthouse, they were told that they were going to interview five people involved with the event. The exercise was intended to have the participants practice the skills that they would need to teach their students such as; how to handle difficult or hostile witnesses, ask relevant questions and spot an unreliable witness. Instructors and staff played the parts of law enforcement, a private citizen, newspaper staff and public servants. Teachers were then allotted a short amount of time with each, after they were to write a lead to their story.
It was one the most effective activities used to teach journalism that I have seen. I believe that it will be effective with a wide variety of students since it appeals to kinesthetic learners (some of the students who have the hardest time in my class) and critical thinking skills. I think that this particular exercise could be expanded to include different scenarios and a larger geographical area. I was thinking of creating a scenario that could happen at school and have them figure out which students, faculty, and staff they would need to interview. This would probably be at the end of the year after we had practiced in class and the last issue had gone to print.
Virginia Barr
Turlock High School
Turlock, CA
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I would imagine students would enjoy this so much, they could engage in it frequently throughout the semester and year -- I don't think I'd save it for last. The hardest thing would be creating scenarios that are interesting and well-thought out. Perhaps a few of the various participants in Reynolds (past and present) could cooperate to create various usable scenarios which could be used throughout the year? Lynn Dulcie Rock Hill High School, Rock Hill, SC
ReplyDeleteI think that many of us had a similar response to this activity. It was both fun and instructional. I also have it down as a "must-try" when I return to the classroom, but I am thinking of doing it at the beginning of the year, during the "interviewing" section of the curriculum. It will be a challenge to come up with an age-appropriate story and to write the thorough character back-stories that we experienced today, (our students would not be sent to cover a courthouse explosion an hour after it occurred), but I think the reward would be worth it.
ReplyDeleteI can also picture a certain theater teacher and a crew of eager counselors who would probably love to play the parts! Even better, Jill Bhowmik suggested that her advanced students could play the parts of the interview subjects and evaluate the skills of the beginning journalism students.
Kye Haina
Kamehameha Schools Maui
Pukalani, Hawai'i
This activity would be a great first-week-of-school activity, but using situations of more relevance to students. They'd have fun, be forced to think on their feet plus feel the pressure of operating under a tight deadline.
ReplyDeleteBoth suggestions for portraying the characters are good, either using advanced students or theatre students.
An extension of this idea would be to use this exercise as part of a final exam, but instead of forming groups have students operate solo.
Students would show they have a grasp of journalism techniques; it would be up to us teachers to have an appropriate way to assign a grade to students' efforts.
Mark Webber
Vidal M. Treviño School of Communications and Fine Arts
Laredo, Texas
Like all of you, I believe that this exercise would be appealing to my students. But, I tend to believe that my characters would be played by the veterans on my publications' staffs. I like the idea of developing this activity as a rite of passage which could easily be revisited througout the year with revision to the initial story. Of course, localizing the story line and developing characters that the students can relate to would make it more interesting for them.
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