From Concept to Cover Story: Magazine Writing Overview (Ages 11-15)

This class will cover the process of writing a magazine article, from the initial pitch to the final product. Each week will build on the previous one as students learn about and build the elements of an article. By the end of the 8-week class series, each student will have named their own fictional magazine, created a story for it based on a topic of their choice, and created images to go with their magazine and/or story. 

Students who are curious about the world around them and who enjoy writing, (even if they don't know much about magazine writing yet), will benefit most from this class; while there are certainly academic benefits to this course, more emphasis will be placed on creativity and gradual improvement in writing skill than on grammatical perfection. 

The class will also briefly delve into the multimedia elements of magazine creation, such as cover images and portraits, although heavier emphasis will be on writing their story; this class should not be thought of as a design course.

Classes will be taught with a combination of lecture-style instruction, interactive group discussion, voluntary sharing, and writing practice time. Each class will start with a lecture that introduces the topic for the week, (generally involving a slideshow or an on-screen board with notes), before delving into group discussion and writing time. Later in the course, more time will be devoted to writing the article of the student's choice and workshopping the story as a group; students will be expected to offer polite and constructive criticism only during these workshopping sessions. 

The topic breakdown of the 8-week course is as follows; please note, the content of each class session may be pushed forward or back depending on the number of learners enrolled and the level of interest in/questions about specific topics. 

Week 1: What is Magazine Writing? 
Week 2: Pitching an Article
Week 3: Conducting Research, Interviewing a Subject, Magazine Photography Overview
Week 4: Writing Your Article
Week 5: Editing Your Article
Week 6: Creating a Cover, Magazine and Article Titles, Multimedia Elements
Week 7: Editing Your Article Continued and Group Workshop (Voluntary Participation)
Week 8: Final Product Workshop and Group Share

If there is extra time in the course, we will discuss the history of magazines in more depth as well as 'zines.