This is our catalog of courses. We will occasionally adjust the course listing to reflect the addition of new courses and the retirement of others.
Learn about journalism—including its foundations, ethics, and skills—and write articles, headlines and bylines, editorials, columns, and more. Take “Business Writing 1: Professional Business Writing Essentials” with this course, and earn 16 weeks of business writing credit.
Total classes: 8
Prerequisite: High School Simplified Writing 1: Strong Foundational Writing Skills (HS 9-2).
Alternative prerequisite: A passing assessment from the Aquinas Writing Advantage Assessment service.
Suggested grade level: 11th grade; however, all high school students are welcome
Suggested credit: 2/3 semester Journalism or Writing. Add the composition of your own documents from the coursework to create a full semester’s credit for writing.
Description
If you want to get all the must-have foundational knowledge about journalism and get hands-on writing experience, this course is for you! Introducing journalism in a sturdy overview, you’ll understand and practice writing skills in the genre of reportive writing as a journalist. Whether you’re interested in learning about how the news that you read is created, or you’re considering becoming a writer of news stories yourself – look over the course outline below. If you see yourself enjoying all that’s here, sign up for this course today.
Outline
Class 1: What is a journalist? (Journalism Overview), a brief history of journalism, and First Amendment Freedoms
Class 2: Ethics in Journalism, quoting and Interviewing, and how journalists can shape a message
Class 3: News Today: what it is, how it’s reported and written, news leads, and headlines and bylines
Class 4: Features: multiple feature news stories, people, ideas, and trends; and investigative reporting
Class 5: Writing editorials and columns
Class 6: How reviews and opinion writing are a part of journalism today
Class 7: News magazines and writing news articles, online journalism, and broadcast journalism
Class 8: The brilliance of advertising, page layout, and graphic design in journalism
Materials and Homework
Course materials: All materials are provided FREE via the instructor. All documents are turned in as Microsoft Word documents. If you do not own Microsoft Word 2007 or a later version, you can use a system such as Google Docs that converts to Word documents FREE.
Homework: Weekly writing assignments, with direct feedback from the instructor with an estimated three (3) to four (4) hours per week for homework outside of class time, including reading, writing, and responding to feedback.
Important Dates
Class Dates: Thursdays, January 25 to March 21, 2024. No class Feb. 22 (mid-semester break)
Class Time: 1:00 PM Eastern (Noon Central; 11:00 Mountain; 10:00 Pacific)
Duration per class: 55 minutes
Registration link
