Day 1 Story Ideas lesson

Prepared by: Jami Williams, Mexico High School, Mexico, Missouri

TARGET
Students will understand how to find story ideas and develop them for an audience

EDUCATION METHODS

1. PowerPoint
2. Brainstorming session
3. Creation of a survey to determine audience

OBJECTIVES

1. Level 1 (Basic) understanding of finding and developing a story idea
2. Level 1 (Basic) understanding of identifying your audience

MATERIALS NEEDED

1. PowerPoint Story Ideas Day 1
2. Projector
3. Google Forms

VERIFICATION
Steps to check for student understanding

1. Teacher will do frequent comprehension checks in the form of Classroom Assessment Techniques (thumbs up, thumbs down; exit slip in the form of post-it note summary)
2. Survey generated by the students to determine their audience demographic.

FLOW OF LESSON

1. Suggested bell ringer: Define: News.
2. Teacher will present PowerPoint
3. Teacher will allow students to work in groups and generate survey questions for an audience survey.
4. Teacher will create the survey on Google forms and share survey with students.
5. Students will be responsible for getting 10 unique survey responders in an independent learning assignment.

TECHNOLOGY REINFORCEMENT ACTIVITY – Google forms survey

1. Students will generate questions for a survey.
2. The teacher will use the projector to create a consensus-approved survey.
3. The teacher will share survey with the students.
4. The students will have the option to forward the survey to 10 people via email or print out the survey and have 10 people fill it out. Results must be brought back the next day.

WRAPPING IT UP

1. Exit slip: How does knowing your audience help you decide what stories should be published or produced?