Welcome to the course site for RPW 245 Journalistic Writing & Research. The SVSU Catalog describes this as a course about the fundamental standards & practices for contemporary journalism.
The SVSU Course Catalog description of Emerging Media: Information Design.
Exploration of core, contemporary journalistic concepts, strategies, and practices. Emphasis on elements of story development, including research, interviews, writing, reportorial styles, and editing. Topics include professionalism, journalistic standards, ethics, working with social media, and the evolution of the profession from print to digital publishing. Emphasis on stylistic elements peculiar to journalism.
Journalism has always been a complex activity. Economic forces, industrial evolution, technological development, and cultural change all impact the way we share information. As it has evolved, Journalism has become much more aligned with other professional writing disciplines and careers. In Technical Communication (the core academic field of study that focuses on writing and design in professional settings), we now more often talk about what we do as technical communication and information design rather than as writing. Parallel to that, journalism has transformed into a market-driven, multimedia endeavor. Written communication is still very much at the core of what you will do in this course, but we will explore a variety of linked strategies that redefine writing in ways that are both appropriate and contemporary. In light of such developments, I have constructed this course to work toward the following learning objectives.
Student preparation and motivation have become recurring themes of conversation among educators since the pandemic. For understandable reasons, students were challenged to keep themselves motivated to learn and achieve during that time, especially during the 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 academic years. People came away from that experience with radically mixed results. In many ways, the system failed you. Keep in mind that it failed teachers in countless ways as well.
Like many people in positions like mine, I assumed our educational system would have had more success at re-establishing core teaching and learning processes by now. Instead, we struggle to defeat the soul-sucking apathy that still lurks in the shadowy corners of our classrooms, just waiting to disrupt you somehow. Although students and educators alike strive to adapt to the altered context we now find ourselves navigating, we continue to observe inconsistent impacts and outcomes.
To be clear, I do not agree at all with the voices who suggest that students today are just not capable of the same quality of work that students yesterday demonstrated during their academic careers. Although I too have observed that students struggle more now with some scholarly activities (e.g., working with source material, engaging deeply with difficult texts), you and your peers are notably stronger than your predecessors in some areas as well, including technology use and public speaking. However, I added this segment to our course materials to acknowledge that I understand that we are all in some ways still finding our way in the changing landscape of higher ed in the 2020s, and to issue a call to action for all who enroll in courses with me.
We must strive semester after semester to do better. That means me as well. I continuously evolve my courses in my attempt to adapt. I have generally replaced traditional textbooks with curated content from smart scholars and experienced professionals. I gather materials in multiple formats: digital books; audio books; articles; knowledge bases; podcasts; videos. Although I have never been a professor who relied on quizzing students or who concocted assignments just to keep students busy, I have invested even more deeply in designing meaningful challenges that offer you opportunities to grow and refine your design toolkit and to engage in knowledge-making and skill-building. I dedicate far more class time to action than to lecture. I still share my knowledge and experience, of course. However, design teams that wrestle with meaningful problems provide the base experience for many of my courses now.
That brings me to your part in this professional development narrative ... . There may be course design decisions I make that inspire you to invest or engage. However, I know from experience that what I do may be hit or miss for you personally. The challenge for you is to find your own motivation, even when my choices generate energy and interest, but especially when you are not excited by the work ahead of you. I hope that the problems you get to invest in spark something in you. But the journey will always include work that is less exciting: reading, listening, watching, doing. You have to push yourself to dig in when the materials and tasks I put in front of you are not exciting or inspiring. I promise I will never make you read anything without a reason. I will never ask you to invest in something for which there is no professional development value or without some meaningful return. I cannot promise that everything will be fun, and I will guarantee that many things will be difficult and challenging. Do your part. Invest. Engage. Ask yourself if you need to do so ... why are we doing this? and consider the possible responses. Look for the value in what you encounter, and strive to take every bit of possibility from it that you can.
This course requires no traditional textbooks. I will assign readings, listenings, and viewings from a variety of resources. I will provide or direct you to materials for these assignments through our course space in SVSU Canvas.
Although there are no required texts, you will need to have access to an array of professional-grade tools to complete much of the work for the semester. Refer to the document RPW245 - Course Requirements & Content At A Glance for specifics. Use this doc as a checklist for preparation. This file is also available on the Files page of our Canvas site in the folder About this Course.
Note that page 2 of the At A Glance doc highlights how content is organized across SVSU Canvas and the course website. For your benefit, please review that discussion.