News Broadcast Storyboard Activity
The following would come toward the middle of a larger unit on journalism. Prior to this, students should have been introduced to the editing process behind putting together a single day’s news program, with some consideration given to the myriad ways in which the end product is shaped and filtered. This activity would be especially effective after the students have logged the local or national news.
Learner Outcomes:
Students will understand the effects of time constraints on news programs and what this means for the final product, i.e. edited and aired broadcast.
Materials:
Five sets of twenty news stories printed on small pieces of paper; each story should include the length of time it will require
Five grids with eighteen blocks, each block representing a minute of broadcast, to represent the eighteen minutes usually afforded to a news program – the remaining twelve minutes, naturally, are given to advertising
Directions:
Students should be broken up into small groups – no larger than three or four to a group. Each group will be given one of the five sets of possible news stories and a grid. Working together to come to a consensus, students must decide which stories to air during the eighteen minutes they are given. While one outcome for this activity is that students will understand the filtering process that raw news goes under as it winds its way to the consumer, the activity may be modified to consider issues of pacing and organization of the stories. Sponsors may be introduced as well as an additional variable to consider in selecting which stories to air. A final possible modification could be to allow students to adjust the length of time for each piece.
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- Adam Hayes
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5 comments:
Hey Adam, I thought this was a really creative way to show how news stations work. I have an activity analyzing them but I like how you actually have the students MAKE them. I also think this would be more fun for the students to partake in, especially since they are divided into groups. I also think its realistic of actual news for the students to make decisions on their own about the broadcast. For example, you have the students controlling the length of time they would like to use to announce each news story. That is very creative!
Hey Adam! I'm jealous you had a media studies class to teach and that you actually got to employ some of these techniques. This is an excellent activity and ties many of the things students have previously learned. I think it would be a great challenge to have the students figure out the timing and the pacing. Would you have the students eventually record themselves and present to the class? It would be interesting to see if what other groups put as the "lead story" and compare their reasoning.
Hey Adam!
I agree with Megan's posting that this is a great way to have students actively working with these ideas. Another idea would be to give students more than enough stories to fill the time, so that they purposefully have to exclude some stories. You might also want to include a balance of stories...such as a story about a male athlete and a story about a female athlete...the sports segment only has so many minutes, so would they choose to include both, one or the other...shortened versions of both? And while you probably plan on doing this, I would have them create some sort of justification for why they made the decisions that they made (either in written form, or in a presentation).
Thanks to everyone for your input. To address some of the questions, this could certainly be modified to include students producing an actual broadcast. Regarding Anna's comment, my plan was to give each group a different set of stories, but it would make for interesting debate to give them all the same and compare priorities. As for Matt's comment, I have the number of stories set purposely high - there is no way they could fit twenty stories into a broadcast - so that they have to choose which stories to exclude. Thanks again for all of your interest!
Adam, you are rackin up with comments dude!! I think that your activity sounds great! I agree with Megan that it's a great way to show students how news stations work. It also shows them the pressure that journalists go through and how some things may not be presented in the way that they should, given the time constraint. With that, I think that students will see how easy it is to be biased. I know that you have had some experience teaching a media course. I'm curious, did you ever have your students do this lesson plan? If so, was it effective? I do not consider myself journalist / news station savvy, but I find it fascinating and hope that someday I'll have the necessary skills to teach it. Did you feel that you were equipped upon teaching the students this subject?
-Thanks again for the idea!
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