Writing your first story

YOU WILL BE DOING MULTIPLE POSTS OVER THE NEXT TWO CLASSES - SO READ THE INSTRUCTIONS CAREFULLY!!!

First - you should type in the answers from your student of the month interview. That blog should be called My First Interview. You can put them directly with the questions you wrote, but please use a different font and font color. Make sure I can read it!! You may be done with this task. If so, please move on to the next task.

Second - Please type in the questions and the sources for your School Uniform story. That blog should be called School Uniforms. This task should already be complete, but make sure you have it done.

Third - go find a copy of the Inverted Pyramid and posting it to you blog in a NEW post called Inverted Pyramid. All you need to do is to a google image search and find one you like. Remember this is about newspaper, more specifically hard news writing, so get something appropriate. Post that image to your blog.

Fourth - its time to start learning how to piece a news story together - the first thing we have to do is write a lead - or the first paragraph. But you have to remember that the basis of this story is the Inverted Pyramid, which you have posted an example of the pyramid on your blog. Remember its the most important stuff at the beginning, and slowly tapering off to the least important stuff.

Answer the following questions on your blog in a post called Student of the Month Story.

Who -
What -
Where -
When -
Why -
How -

That information is what we need to get into the opening paragraph, or the lead of the story. Do your best to take those six thing and craft a beginning.

The next step in this process is to write what is called the Nut Graff, or the second paragraph.

What the heck??? A Nut Graf....what does that mean.

Well - go find out, do a google search for "Nut Graf". Make sure you read a couple of different definitions. Guys, honestly....wikipedia is a great starting point, but it is NOT always accurate so you always want to double check your facts and sources. This is a great habit for journalists to get into.

On your blog, create a new post called "Nut Graf" and in your own words explain what a "Nut Graf" is. Make sure its accurate. You should write at least 2 paragraphs explaining.

Now - a Nut Graf is much more important in stories that are NOT hard news, but we will use them in hard news stories.

Go back to your blog and EDIT your Student of the Month Interviews. Use the following to help start crafting the lead of your story.

Who -
What -
Where -
When -
Why -
How -

Now start writing that first paragraph, try to use as many of the 5Ws and 1H as possible. Make it simple, concise and not more than 50 words long. If you can get it into one sentence, that is best. Two short sentences is acceptable.

If you did not answer any of those CRUCIAL 5 W's and 1 H, they MUST be answered in the second paragraph - or your Nut Graf. Write the second paragraph and make sure you get all that information in.

Okay now lets get into the Body of your Hard News Story:

The body has a specific format that we have to follow. EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Here is what it looks like.

Statement paragraph - a factual, non-opinionated statement about our subject. In general these statements are one, maybe two sentences long. They are simple, short, concise statements. Don't use lots of commas, don't try to string prepositional phrases together. The acronym we always use is KISS - Keep it Simple Stupid.

Here is an example:

Senior Erica Jones was recently named Student of the Month by the Bowie administration.

This statement paragraph is followed by:

A quote - this quote is a DIRECT quote. It should directly relate to the Statement paragraph above it.

It looks like this:

"We chose Erica for student of the month because she has really great grades and she is the president of the National Honor Society," assistant principal Samantha Smith said.

Look carefully at the format. The paragraph starts with a quotation mark. It is a complete sentence. BUT be careful - at the end of the sentence, we end with a comma and another quotation mark, because technically it isn't a complete sentence until we give attribution of WHO said it.

Again, look carefully - the format of the attribution will be the same EVERY SINGLE TIME. It is title (we will talk more about titles together soon), their FULL name and it ends with the word said and then the sentence is complete so we put a period.

There is no other form of punctuation and we will use that same attribution format EVERY TIME, with two minor changes. Once you tell the reader the title of the person who said something, you never have to give it again. AND once you use their full name (first and last) if you quote that person again, you will only use their last name from then on. I will share an example soon.

The story will continue with the same format over and over.

Statement
Direct quote
Statement
Direct Quote

Now, how do you end a story like this.....well you have two options. You can end with a quote and sometimes this is the easiest. Other times you can include a statement that isn't important stuff.

Here are examples:

Direct Quote - "I plan to attend college at the University of Texas," Jones said.

Statement - The next student of the month will be announced in late November.

Your job is to now go in and finish your Student of the Month story. You will have the rest of this class and all of next to complete this task.