RISE Citizen Journalism 2019: Recap of the 2nd, 3rd and the 4th Sessions!

Written by Ms. Mazoud and Ms.Arjdal

RISE Citizen Journalism 2019 and RISE team are committed to giving our participants all the proper training to become young citizen journalists and we are also committed to keeping you updated on how our programs are going on.

During our second RISE session, led by Ms. Tasnim Elboute, she introduced our participants to the structure of good storytelling and how to enhance the way of storytelling in journalism. We started the session with an icebreaker to go past the barriers between our participants and to enable them to be more open during the discussions. We watched then a video of a stand-up comedy in English to show the aspect of good storytelling not just in written pieces, but also in oral ones. Later, our RISERs had to brainstorm and find the key differences and similarities between the two forms of storytelling.

We learned more about what are the elements that make a story “make-sense” and what the elements of a story are. The participants were introduced to different story structures they can follow and Ms. Tasnim gave them an example of a Juha story and how Freytag’s Pyramid exhibited in it.

Our participants were previously asked to read different Investigative Journalism pieces and during the session, they discussed their thoughts, reactions to the stories. They also identified the elements of the story they thought were compelling and they ended the discussion by citing the elements they think compose a good investigative article.

Each session we give our participants an assignment to enhance their writing skills and motivate them to be creative. Our assignment for this session was to write a short story on any topic they like. We gave them some ideas for the story, such that it can include any personal experiences about school, gender, education, the environment, etc.  

The following week, the session was dedicated to learning about writing Mechanics and The Opinion-Editorial (OpEd, for short). Ms. Katie Tyler started the session by asking when is opinion relevant in media. Following this, she taught them about the uses of pathos, ethos, and logos also known as the Aristoteles “mode for persuasion.”  As an exercise, our participants were asked to highlight where the author in each of the articles uses these tactics.

We later explained to the participants the importance of articulating their motives and how to use them during writing. This session was full of interactive activities and group work like when the RISERs had to read an op-ed and identify the motivating moves that the author used. At the end they learned how to refine an argument and work on a thesis and that a thesis does more than just point out something they can observe, instead, it creates an argument that builds from one point to the next.

In the fourth session, we moved out from the written form of journalism and we decided to give a glance to the world of audio journalism. we started first our session by discussing the differences and similarities between podcasting and broadcasting.

As known one of the most important things that any podcaster should know and master the art of conducting an interview, and that why we decided to teach first our RISERs about the fundamental techniques to become a good interviewer. Also, they were introduced to active listening methods that will make the interviewee more engaged during an interview. To practice what they have learned, we organized a short activity where our RISERs formed groups of three. Each RISER picked a piece of paper out of a hat and enact a scenario the RISE team created for them with a partner. Each person in the group rotated between taking on the roles of the listener, the speaker, and the observer.

Summing up the session, Ms. Katie shared the tools our participants might need for getting a better sound and also showed them how to use a free audio editing software. We are looking forward to the next sessions and please stay tuned on our social media to get updates and know more about the RISE Citizen Journalism 2019 sessions and stories.