Description
The best way for students to decide the direction in which they want to take their program is to analyze the work of others. This lesson will help students walk through the work of other high school broadcast programs, set goals for their own work, and create rubrics for assessment of that work.
Objectives
- Students will explore the work of award-winning high school broadcast programs.
- Students will create a list of characteristics that award-winning programs have in common.
- Students will create a rubric for self-analysis.
Common Core State Standards
| CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.7 | Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words. |
| CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.9-10.2 | Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content. |
| CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.9-10.1.D | Respond thoughtfully to diverse perspectives, summarize points of agreement and disagreement, and, when warranted, qualify or justify their own views and understanding and make new connections in light of the evidence and reasoning presented. |
Length
Two 90-minutes blocks (or less)
Resources
Slideshow: Award-winning high school broadcast programs (links to submissions attached to individual slides)
Rubric: Creating a student broadcast rubric
Handout: Analyzing student work
Handout: Creating a student broadcast rubric
Sample TJTV Broadcast for Evaluation: https://youtu.be/XQ2JB5SnHZw
Lesson step-by-step
Introduction and Brainstorming – 5 minutes
1. Teacher (or editor, depending on class level) should lead the class in an initial brainstorm regarding their experience with evening news shows. Students should make a list of everything they think of when it comes to these programs. Characteristics will most likely include (but are not limited to) anchors, interviews, human interest stories, news, breaking news.
2. Ask students what they expect to see in a high school broadcast program given the constraints of their own program and the high school setting. Consider making a T-chart or Venn Diagram on the board to compare and contrast the aspects they expect to see in professional broadcast programs with their expectations of student broadcast programs.
3. Tell students that they will be viewing a series of award-winning broadcast programs in order to set their own goals and assessment criteria for their own programs.
Examining Examples – 45 minutes
4. The “Award-Winning High School Broadcast” slideshow has approximately one hour and forty-five minutes of programming. Teachers should feel free to select examples that best fit their own goals, program goals, and the school community.
5. While viewing, students should complete the chart on the “Analyzing Student Work” handout. Limiting viewing to 45 minutes should give teachers time to view and discuss 2-3 examples. You could also consider having students work in small groups with overlapping video assignments to garner more diverse perspectives.
6. Once viewing has ended, the teacher should lead a full-class discussion on the “must-have” characteristics for a high school program, based on the viewing, making a list of all characteristics on the board. At the end of this phase of the lesson, students should either copy down a list of characteristics or take a picture. They will need this list in the next phase of the lesson.
Creating an Assessment Rubric – 45 minutes
7. Put students in groups of 3-4. These will be their rubric creation groups.
8. Using the list of characteristics created in the last phase of the lesson, students should select the five most important characteristics of a successful broadcast. Pass out the “Creating a Student Broadcast” Rubric; go over the directions as well as the sample. Encourage students to focus on what an excellent/average and poor sample LOOKS LIKE, rather than what it DOES NOT look like. Stress that they should write these descriptions very carefully.
9. Once students have selected what they consider to be the five most important characteristics, they should work together to create a rubric by which they will judge their own program’s student broadcasts.
10. If your school has an existing broadcast program, each group should grade a previous episode according to the rubric they have created. If not, they can grade the sample from TJTV listed in the materials section.
11. At the bottom of each rubric, there is a space to list one specific strength of the broadcast and one specific area for improvement. Make sure that students include this not only on their rubrics, but also in their analysis of their sample broadcast. This is a practice in which they should always engage for more specific evaluation of their own work.
OPTIONAL: Selecting a Broadcast Rubric for the Year – 30 minutes
12. This phase of the lesson is optional. If your program currently has a Broadcast Executive Producer, the teacher should have a meeting with the EP to discuss which rubric(s) to use to evaluate student work for the year.
13. The teacher and EP should look at each rubric, their categories and descriptions to piece together a rubric that will help students create work that will meet the level expectation for both the teacher and the EP.
Differentiation
Should the teacher need to expand the lesson, expand the number of viewed samples.
This lesson would easily translate to substitute plan and/or home bound lessons.