This lesson on creating a storyboard falls within the overall news unit. (See attached lesson plan.) This unit demonstrates news writing for print mediums, feature writing for print mediums, design, layout and headline writing culminating in the creation of a front page of a newspaper that contains the student’s news article, feature article, and photograph. (Photography for publication principles was the unit prior to this one.) Also included in this unit is news writing and production for video mediums.

An overall goal of this unit is for students to understand the components of building a news delivery medium and then create their own version of such (both print and video). In doing so, students will differentiate between news writing for video and print mediums. They will then create news articles for both mediums. In creating news articles for a video medium, students will be introduced to the vocabulary and procedures used in creating and presenting video. This will not only serve as a teaching tool to create the current video news assignment, but it will also be a foundation on which to expand when students begin creating their own films.

In addition, this unit continues the overarching goal of media literacy. When students are allowed to build something like a newspaper page or a video news segment from its components, they get a good idea of how the same thing is created in real life situations. My hope is that they can be more discerning of the news they read or view on any media. Having understood the process of gatekeeper as the journalist, the editor, the page designer, and the video story board creator, students will realize that not all facts are used and not all questions are asked and/or answered.

Students will be assessed on the storyboard with the rubric provided in the lesson plan. In addition, use of the story board in the production of the news segment will be assessed in the rubric for the finished news segment. A further means of assessment will be a quiz on video production vocabulary to be administered after the video segment production project is complete.