Rules of Journalism

1. Journalism's first obligation is to the truth.

• What does this mean to you?
• How will you find the truth when you work on your story?
• If you can't find the truth, how can you still write your story?

2. Its first loyalty is to citizens.

• What does this mean to you?
• How can you be loyal to students, teachers and staff as you tell your story?
• If you can't be loyal, how can you still write your story?

3. Its essence is a discipline of verification.

• What does this mean to you?
• How will you verify facts in your story?
• If you can't find out if everything is true, do you still tell your story?
  

4. Journalists must maintain an independence from their stories.

• What does this mean to you?
• How will you remain independent in your story? (Do you take sides?)
• If you can't find every side to the story, how can you still tell your story?

5. It must serve as an independent monitor of power.

• What does this mean to you?

6. It must provide a forum for public criticism and compromise.

• What does this mean to you?
• Will people criticize your story?
• How will you deal with people who criticize your story in a respectful way?

7. It must strive to make the significant interesting and relevant.

• What does this mean to you?
• How will you make your story interesting and relevant?
• If your story is not interesting and relevant, do you still tell it?
  

8. It must keep the news comprehensive and proportional.

• What does this mean to you?
• How can you be short and to the point, but also tell everything you need to tell?
• What if your story is too long? Too short?
  

9. Its practitioners must be allowed to exercise their personal conscience.

• What does this mean to you?
• If there is a story, but you know you should not contribute to gossip and rumors, do you still tell the story?

Story Ideas

Open your word documents from this week.

• No technology
• Technology of the future
• If you were the principal...

Pick one topic you'd like to focus on.

For example: If you were the principal and you want to change the uniforms, that is your story. Decide what else you want to write about that topic. Who might you talk to? What would you ask? Is there a solution?

OR: If you think there will be flying cars in the future, who might you ask to see what they think? What do we need to get flying cars?

Answer these questions to begin to form your story idea.

School Principal

Imagine that you are the principal of Castro Middle School.

Write a story that describes what the school would be like with you as its leader.

Write three paragraphs (each paragraph should be 3-5 sentences). Your story should have a beginning, middle and end.

Use correct spelling, grammar and punctuation.

Technology of the Future

What changes do you think will happen in the next year? Next five years? Next 10 years? Fifty years!?

(Just think, Google was created in 1998 ... remember your technology timeline!)

Write about what you think will exist in the future.

Write 3 paragraphs (3-5 sentences each) about what technology will exist in the future.

How will it help us? Will it hurt us?

Technology Crash

Imagine that all of the computer technology in the world stopped working at the same time.

Write a story that describes what the world would be like in this situation.

Please write three paragraphs (beginning, middle, end). Each paragraph can be 4-6 sentences long.

You may want to use an outline to begin your work. Decide the who/what/where/when/why and how of your story.

Be sure to include details of what the world would be like and how the world will be changed.

Editing and Questions

Today's Choices

• Click here to answer these questions.

• Continue to edit your domo movies.

Story Telling

OBJECTIVE: Students will be able to construct a story by using Domo Animate.

Think about:

• Genre
  
• Characters
• Problem
• Solution
• Your story must make sense.
• Someone watching must be able to know what's going on.

Click here to explore!

Progress Report

You will be creating your progress report using tables in PAGES.

OBJECTIVE: Students will work to become independent, reflective problem-solvers by looking at their work and making decisions about their progress.

Your Assignments:

• Way of Life in WORD
• About Me in POWERPOINT
• Technology Timeline in WORD and POWERPOINT
• Typing Graph in EXCEL and WORD
• Google maps in PAGES
• Career site in iWEB

Set up your TABLE so that you have:

• Four columns
  
• One column for a list of your assignments
• Three columns that say - Ran out of time, Could Improve, Did My Best

In the columns, choose whether or not you ran out of time, could improve or did you best. Then in that column, write what you learned from the assignment.

• What computer skill did you learn?
  
• What did you learn about yourself?
  
• What did you get out of doing the assignment overall?

My Career Continued

Continue to research your career.

• What skills will you need?
• Where would you like to work?
• Remember, choose something that you enjoy.

In iWeb, make three pages:

• a Welcome page
• an About Me page
• a page about your career
  

My Career

What do you want to do when you grow up?

1. Pick what you want to be.

2. Research what it will take for you to do that job.

• This might include looking up jobs on the internet, looking at what skills you will need, what type of education you will need and more.
  

3. Take notes

• As you research, write down in WORD what skills you will need, what education you will need, where you'd like to work, what you'd like to do.
• Make bookmarks of the websites you visit.
  

4. Create a business or find a business that you'd like to work for. What will you do there?

Your Microsoft WORD document might look something like this:

What I want to be:


What skills and education I will need:


Some names of places where I could work:


If I could make my own business, it would be:


Websites that could help me:

Google Maps

You will navigate Google Maps to:

* Learn about world cities and landmarks (geography)
* Find a landmark in the map and take a screen shot (command-shift-4)
* Write two paragraphs (3-5 sentences each) about each city and a landmark in that city.
* Collect your work in PAGES
* Drag your photos into PAGES, write your sentences in a text box.
* Remember to list your sources. (Where did you find the information?)
* Chose 5 out of the 10 choices

Here are the names of the cities to research:

1. London, England
2. Paris, France
3. Washington, DC
4. Great Wall of China
5. New York, New York
6. Baghdad, Iraq
7. New Orleans, Louisiana
8. Pyramids of Giza
9. Honolulu, Hawaii
10. Pick your own

What are Others Doing?

OBJECTIVE: To observe and analyze "Do Something" examples from fellow Castro classmates. Consider options to help, build and grow their plans or your own plans.

OBJECTIVE: Continue to search online for what you can do to positively impact the world by using Do Something.org as a starting point.

Do one of the projects! Go to freerice.com and use the login mruttech and password castro. Be sure to click on the groups and click on Castro Middle School.

Here are some more examples. The projects are listed as a student idea first and then an already established organization:

Big Kids, Little Books and First Book

World Hunger and Free Rice

Music in Our Schools and Music in Our Schools Month

GED Help

Helping Kids With Cancer