Exercises, Assignments, and More

The activities below explore key principles and practices of community-centered journalism. They’re all designed to foster a spirit of playful experimentation in students— from this will emerge new and better ways of empowering communities through journalism.

These exercises and assignments can be used with any level of journalism student. Educators should feel free to tweak the specifics of the assignment while making use of the playful structure upon which they are built.

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Syllabi

Below is a sampling of syllabi used in actual undergraduate Journalism + Design courses at The New School since the program began in Fall 2014. Some of these courses have been taught many times by multiple instructors, who continue to iterate as they teach them again. Others were one-time experiments. Whatever the case, each syllabus reflects events that were current at the time as well as the perspective and passions of the instructor. The syllabi also reflect access to New York’s rich professional communities of journalists and designers.

Code

Web Fundamentals

Theme: Code

Type: Syllabi

This class is designed for people who think code, math, and computers in general are intimidating. Through a series of playful challenges, you will learn how computers, code, and the Web actually work. Along the way, you will pick up valuable skills and knowledge that will allow you to do more complex interactive projects in the future.

Journalism Design Toolkit

Theme: Code, General

Type: Syllabi

This course introduces a core set of technical skills for practicing journalism design. Topics include the basics of computer file systems and the internet, creating websites with HTML and CSS, and using the Adobe Suite (InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop) for digital and print design. Students will not only be exposed to software, theory, and techniques, they will also establish a foundation to teach themselves how to extend their skill sets throughout their careers.

Experimental

Feature Writing for the 21st Century

Theme: Experimental

Type: Syllabi

This course is a bold dive into feature writing — a form of journalism that combines research and reporting with narrative nonfiction storytelling techniques. Students will read and analyze a broad selection of magazine features from throughout the last hundred years including but not limited to celebrity profiles, idea-driven stories, reported personal essays, and works of “new journalism.”

Designing Digital Communities

Theme: Experimental, Community News

Type: Syllabi

The Internet is a place for discussion and collaboration, but the experience can be difficult, confusing, intimidating, or downright hostile. This course will explore how we can design systems for better discussion, collaboration, voting and governance online.

Facts/Alternative Facts

Theme: Experimental, General

Type: Syllabi

How does “fake news” differ from real news; what determines which “facts” are recognized as true; and how can you ensure the accuracy of your own writing? This hybrid course blends lessons in political philosophy, history and communications with practical journalistic instruction to prepare the next generation of journalists to defend facts—and their own careers—at a time when press freedom and democratic institutions are under unprecedented attack.

General

Expanding your audience: Designing for Accessibility

Theme: General, Community News

Type: Syllabi

This course will look at how to utilize new (and old) technologies to make news content accessible to as many people as possible. Topics covered include web accessibility, accessible graphics, closed captioning, and methods for engaging with different communities.

Community News

Engagement Journalism

Theme: Community News

Type: Syllabi

Journalists need to understand audiences in order to best serve them. Journalists must learn how to use social media not only for distribution -- which is now essential for all newsrooms -- but also to communicate with and interact with audiences. This course will teach students how to create an engagement strategy, to use social media for newsgathering and distribution, to design crowd-powered projects, and to measure success through metrics and outcomes.

Multimedia

Reporting for Visuals

Theme: Multimedia

Type: Syllabi

Reporting is the foundation of visual journalism like interactives, maps, charts, and multimedia stories. Being a successful visual journalist requires specific reporting skills that many journalists lack, including how to mine photos and videos for information, how to collect structured data, and how to imagine and pitch a visual story.

Podcasting & Audio Narratives

Theme: Multimedia

Type: Syllabi

This is a class where we will listen hard to the best audio journalism in the business in order to strengthen skills that apply to every medium. We will do an overview of really great listening projec...

Design

Interaction Design for News Apps

Theme: Design

Type: Syllabi

Course Description This course will introduce students to key concepts and foundational principles of UX (user experience) and interaction design in the context of journalism. The 2016 Presidential el...

Design for Journalists

Theme: Design

Type: Syllabi

This course will explore the role and value of graphic design from a journalistic lens, and the role and value of journalism from a graphic design lens. How can we strengthening our understanding of how how both disciplines rely on one another in our creative and professional practices?

Product Design Strategy for News Organizations

Theme: Design

Type: Syllabi

In this process-focused course, students will work collaboratively in teams to understand and address a core challenge faced by today's news industry: how to evolve a modern news organization when the...

Visualizing Data

Theme: Design, Data

Type: Syllabi

Journalism is about gathering observations, finding patterns, and communicating those patterns. Data journalism is about gathering way more observations, and finding far more accurate and nuanced patt...

Data

Data Journalism Bootcamp

Theme: Data

Type: Syllabi

In this hands-on lab course, students investigate data-driven stories that catalyze change without knowing how to code. Students will learn the basic math and spreadsheet skills needed to verify data and spot outliers that make a great story. Extracting and cleaning data and how to format findings for publication will also be covered. Students will leave knowing how to make spreadsheets do the dirty work of great journalism.

Journalism Basics

News, Narrative & Design III

Theme: Journalism Basics

Type: Syllabi

The first in a three-course sequence that introduces students to journalism and its crucial role in democratic society. Through real, project-based work, students will research, report, and present news stories while considering how to best engage an audience and have impact. An introduction to human-centered design practices and to the complexity and competitiveness of the 21st-century media ecosystem.

News, Narrative & Design II

Theme: Journalism Basics

Type: Syllabi

This writing-intensive course will lead students more deeply into the tools and practices of today’s digital journalists. It builds upon core Journalism + Design concepts: deep listening, generating and synthesizing ideas, iteration and critique.

News, Narrative & Design I

Theme: Journalism Basics

Type: Syllabi

The first in a three-course sequence that introduces students to journalism and its crucial role in democratic society. Through real, project-based work, students will research, report, and present news stories while considering how to best engage an audience and have impact. An introduction to human-centered design practices and to the complexity and competitiveness of the 21st-century media ecosystem.

Systems Thinking

Designing News Games

Theme: Systems Thinking, Design

Type: Syllabi

Course Description Students will learn how journalists can use games to tell complex stories. The class will focus on the fundamentals of game design theory, analyzing existing games that tackle serio...

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