2007 GIFT GRAND PRIZE WINNER

Writing for different beats requires an ability to see issues from several different angles and understand how to adjust writing styles to meet the needs of the beats and the audiences. The best reporters are able to consider and choose between multiple perspectives and angles. In addition, beginning reporting students need refreshers on basic hard news lead elements. Inspired by copy desk exercises where we polished headline writing skills by coming up with headlines for Bible stories, fairytales, myths etc. and by the fake news pages that each departing journalist got as a going away present, I developed an active-learning exercise to help students learn how to develop story angles specific to different beats. In the process, it also gave me another opportunity to review basic hard news lead elements.

The fairytale lead-writing exercise pushes students to re-imagine familiar stories as news stories and to think critically about what types of angles are needed for standard newspaper beats. Also fairytales are chronological narratives � similar in many ways to stories that sources may tell students. Beginning reporting students sometimes have difficulty converting chronological accounts of events into inverted pyramid stories. This exercise walks students through pulling the important journalistic elements out of a narrative form of communication.

• Tell students they are general assignment reporters for the land of Far, Far Away, writing for its famous daily newspaper -- Once Upon a Times.
  

• Walk the class through how to turn a classic fairytale into a newspaper lead: (1) review the facts of a common fairytale; (2) have students identify 5Ws and 1H from the fairytale; (3) collaboratively write an example of a hard news lead based on a fairytale; (4) collaboratively write an different hard news lead based on another news beat. (Jack and the Beanstalk as a crime story and then as a business story works well for this).
  

• Assign students to timed-writing exercise to write three to five leads. Each lead should be from a different beat perspective. Provide links to online fairytale Websites for students who need a refresher. (for example, http://www.childrenstory.com/tales/)
  

• During the next class, review best examples and any common errors.

The next in-class exercise I often do after the fairytale leads exercise is have students come up with a story budget (aka idea budget) for several on-campus beats, and I have noticed the variety and creativity of the story budgets improves when I use the fairytale lead exercise.

I enjoy reading the leads that get written during this exercise � it�s not the same story 15 or 20 times over. It helps me to diagnose common problems and individual lead writing problems so that I can tailor other lead and story writing lectures and exercises to address those problems.

Students in my reporting classes are asked to write journal entries each week. They invariably write how much they enjoy this exercise. They like it because they can be �creative.�

An example entry from one of my students: �I thought the fairytale lead activity that I did out of class was fun and good practice. It was fun being creative, yet working on lead skills at the same time. I was able to apply Tortoise and the Hare, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Cinderella to other type of story beats. Little activities like these make practicing leads a little more interesting. I tend to write leads too long, so the more I practice the easier it should be.�

Another entry from a student about the exercise: �It was interesting looking at stories I grew up with and trying to see them from a totally different angle and writing about them as news stories. It was good practice I think for getting into the habit of thinking like a journalist even before you start writing. It may seem obvious, but how many people really think about Cinderella as a government story? I certainly did not.�