Breaking the Rules
Module 1, Activity 6.1 - Literary Journalism Basics
Teacher Page
(student page for this lesson)

Introduction:
The students will learn the basic characteristics of literary journalism through looking at its evolution and fundamental beliefs.

Resources:
- paper and art supplies
- self-assessment tool (.rtf) or (.doc) to attach to the sketch
- principles chart (.rtf) or (.doc)
- you may also prefer to have a paper copy of the principles listed in this page web page under task three. The Principles of Literary Journalism handout (.rtf) or (.doc) aides class discussion.

Activities:

Task One - The Art of Unlearning
Students will read a brief passage on the evolution of new journalism and literary journalism. Then they will use three steps to choose a principle of traditional journalism and satirize it. The steps as explained in the student lesson are listed below:

Step One: Choose an element of journalism we have learned about like libel, structure, how to interview or how to structure a story.

Step Two: Decide what about it limits how well the journalist can do what they want to do. Write that as a simple statement.

Step Three: Create a cartoon, collage, or picture to show your idea. Spend less than 40 minutes on your creation. It might look like a group of reporters trying to interview someone with inverted pyramids for heads. Or it could be a newspaper folded in the shape of a pyramid and asleep on a pillow. View the tool for assessing your work before you start.

As your students work through the stages, they may need substantial help from you regarding the nature of satire. Examples from commonly understood satire like the television show the Simpson's might help them understand. You could also look at the sample image on the student page and discuss it as a group.

When they are part way through their sketching, stop them and review the checklist for self-assessment so all students are comfortable with their task.

Instructional Strategies:

Task 1 - Representation (Indirect)
Task 2 - Cloze Procedure (Indirect) and Discussion (Interactive) in the extension.
Task 3 - Reading for meaning (Direct)

Extending the Learning

If you would like to extend student understanding of the development of literary journalism, use the charts as the starting point for a class discussion on traditional media. Issues relating to recent practice like imbedded journalists in the Iraq war would be a good example for further extension. If you choose to extend Task 2, introduce the principles introduced in Task 3 using a handout and blend them into the discussion.

Task Three - Procuring Principles

In this task, students read through the basic principles of literary journalism and respond to them using 5 questions. When students have finished the questions, correct the questions to check student comprehension of the principles.

Assessment and Evaluation:

Student learning is assessed in three ways throughout the lesson. In Task One , students use a checklist to self-assess their satire sketches. In Task Two, the chart and the extension check comprehension of the ideas introduced in the first task. In Task Three, concepts are check through questions at the close of the reading. More summative assessment occurs during the tasks in the next lesson.