It's only day one and I'm already pumped over ideas to take into my newsroom.
Today's story mapping brainstorm has now transformed my once out of focus pitch meeting into a audience-targeted idea generator.
I believe using the tree format will help my students not only generate one story idea but also several evergreen stories that could work throughout the year. On several occasions, I've had to prompt my students to think beyond the surface for deeper story angles that would engage the audience. Students will want to talk about buzz issues such as Miley Cyrus' antics just because it is popular without uncovering how the issue applies directly to their own lives.
Another great tool that I plan to implement during our "mapping meetings" is the six-word rule. I know that if it helped me focus my story topic my students will definitely benefit. The six-word rule would also be a great way for my students to create anchor leads and article descriptions for our online publication.
These were great ideas for a great start!
Candace Bagwell
Heritage High School
Frisco, Texas
Story Mapping was an eye-opener for me as well. This last year I started off both of my journalism semesters with a story ideas brainstorming session, challenging students to come up with as many feasible story ideas as they could, awarding a price to the student with the most productive ideas, but really this just resulted in a "fall back" sheet that students could pull from if they were out of ideas. Story mapping in itself, especially when tied to following current events is such a more productive way to yield a great variety of feasible topics without losing relevancy or the brainstorming aspect of "branching out".
ReplyDeleteI think I will adopt this on at least a weekly-basis, challenging my students to link current events to community or school related, localized and unique story ideas.
Stephanie Floch
Taylorsville High School
Taylorsville, Utah
Got that idea from "Writing and Reporting the News" by Carole Rich out of the University of Alaska. It's one of the few how-to guides that addresses the critical challenge of developing and focusing story ideas. I'm glad it was useful.
ReplyDeleteSteve Elliott
Arizona State University
Phoenix
I, too, think that story mapping will be an incredibly beneficial tool to share with my students. Kids need structure to help them branch out form a topic or area of interest to a more specific story that could be reported and written. Thanks for sharing, Steve, and for reflecting, Candace. I'll have to look into that book, Steve.
ReplyDelete-Travis Durfee
Watkins Glen Central School District