Student of the Month writing day. Assigned 10/2, due 10/3 - MAJOR

For the rest of the class you will be working on your Student of the Month story. You will have until Friday to complete this assignment and to write in class. This will be due on Friday, October 3 by the end of class. You will also take a current events quiz that day.

You have interviewed someone in class and you should have your questions and answers already on your Google Doc. You were also already supposed to have your additional two interviews completed, remember we made these up. Those should also be on your Google Doc. A really good way to organize these "different" interviews is to color code them. Here is an example:

SAMPLE STORY DOC

On YOUR same Google Doc, either at the top or the bottom - start writing your story. You could label it with DRAFT, or even just write the words STORY. 

For this first effort, I want you to write a straight news lead, meaning you should try to tell me who, what, where, when and maybe the beginning of why or how in that first paragraph.

This can be really simple, just answer the following questions in the first paragraph:

Who:
What:
Where:
When:
Why:

or
How:

HINT: Make sure you use full names, make sure you do the quotations correctly, make sure you follow the format, and in general each sentence will be its own paragraph.

Here is the formula we will be using to write these "NEWS" stories:

LEAD - 5W's

Direct Quote - which goes with the lede
Statement - factual information about your subject - can be an indirect quote, but should be used sparingly
Direct Quote - which goes with the statement above
Statement - factual information about your subject - can be an indirect quote, but should be used sparingly
Direct Quote - which goes with the statement above
Statement - factual information about your subject - can be an indirect quote, but should be used sparingly
Direct Quote - which goes with the statement above
Etc
Etc

Statements are FACTS. These tell us something new about your subject. You should base these "facts" on a quote you have to go with your story, as they work together. Think about the inverted pyramid. Tell me the most important reasons your person won student of the month first, and slowly add less relevant reasons.

When you do your quote, we also use a very specific style. Please not the construction of that direct quote. Notice the punctuation. The quote structure will be EXACTLY the same every single time. Look at where the quotation marks are. Look at the attribution - it always starts with a title, then a full name and finishes with SAID. Once you introduce someone the first time, you can revert to just using their last name from then on. Finally, if you end up having people with the same last name in your story, I will  go over how to do that next class.

Here is an example of a quote:

"I think Dave was a perfect choice for student of them month," history teacher James Smith said. "He works hard in class and is a leader in JROTC and those really help him be a standout."

Your story needs to be at least 350 words and should be at least 10-12 paragraphs long.

HINT: Simple and concise are the best words to think about when you are writing. Is this simple, like so your little brother who is 12 could read it and understand it. And concise; meaning are the sentences and paragraphs short and to the point. Big words are fine, but use appropriate big words. Let your VERBS shine!!

You will be assigned a club or organization to write about soon, and at that time we will talk a little more about lead writing, specifically we will shift to a "narrative" lead and will add another paragraph between the lead and the first quote. We will cover that later.