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J-School Curriculum Builder
Faith Sidlow, an assistant professor of broadcast journalism at California State University-Fresno, directs students during the Global News Relay.
In this course, taught by Holly Wise at Texas State University - San Marcos, students were introduced to the concepts of solutions journalism and then worked with a partner to produce a 90-second video on an assigned story. Most of the learning was completed remotely, with one in-person meeting on campus after the students had completed their reporting, to work together on editing their videos. The first week of this two-week course focused on learning the essentials of solutions journalism, while the second week consisted primarily of researching, reporting and producing the short video.
Framing Solutions Storytelling through Digital Narrative (Holly Wise, Texas State University-San Marcos)
» Students created 90-second digital stories
» The class was divided into two groups and received their story assignments [Topic 1]
» The class was divided into two groups and received their story assignments [Topic 2]
» Students participated in group discussions on the class Facebook page
Instructional videos on the essentials of solutions journalism were posted and viewed via a student resources folder, and students were required to respond to daily discussion questions in the class Facebook group.
Students completed regularly scheduled quizzes.
For the first week, assignments revolved around reading materials about solutions journalism and beginning reporting. For the second week, assignments revolved around researching, reporting, and producing the short video.
Resources
“There’s a lot of journalism that is not glamorous and is not fun. Solutions journalism can give a different perspective to how we tell that same story, and it’s really refreshing because our audiences are often fatigued by ‘bad news,’ but journalists are also fatigued in telling that same story over and over again.”
“As a journalist I often find or hear about issues and then I research, investigate, and report. Applying Solutions Journalism to that technique adds the extra task of investigating solutions and I believe that’s going to change how I work in my career.”
