Sample Assignments

Please see the Sample Solutions Journalism Syllabuses in the next section for examples of courses that focus on or include solutions journalism. Here are some assignments that are common to many courses. Consider having students workshop each of their assignments together prior to submitting them.
 

1. Problem memo: Students benefit by starting off with an idea about what problem they hope to find a response to. A successful memo will locate and quantify the problem. It should:
   • Clearly describe a specific societal problem (e.g., addiction, gun violence, food insecurity) the student wants to write about, explaining what the big picture is (e.g.,  national) and the local manifestation (e.g., in the location of the response).
   • Then describe the small slice or slices the student wants to focus on. So, for example, go from addiction to opioid addiction among some specific group or groups of people that are afflicted by it today locally.
   • Include the primary sources to support all the information in the memo: documents, databases and credible websites, not other news stories — though students can find references to credible sources in other news stories and then go look them up themselves. (The Journalist’s Resource is a reliable source.) Also, students should look for any scholarly research that has been done (e.g., through Google Scholar).
   • Finally — and this is the hardest part — students should find and briefly describe at least one response being implemented to address the problem (or facet of the problem) and provide contact information for someone they can reach out to about that approach. The response does not have to be local if a better example elsewhere might lend local insights. The response must be described in a few sentences, and the information must be attributed.
2. Pitch memo: As students research the problem and responses to it, they should create a pitch memo to help organize their evolving story. Elements of a pitch memo can include: 
   • What is your initial idea for a nut graf? (In other words, summarize the story in no more than three sentences.)
   • What do you know about the problem?
   • What do you know about the response?
   • What don’t you know about the response?
   • What evidence do you have so far?
   • What limitations do you know about at this point?
   • What insights do you think you might be able to find?
   • What is your source list? Names, who they are, phones, emails.
   • What are your next four steps?
3. Solutions source memo: This is a list of people to contact and questions to ask as the student reports on who is doing what about the problem. 
   • The list should include not only the people responding to the problem, but also people who might know about others responding to the problem, people who study the problem, and perhaps — though this can come later — people who are being helped. 
   • For each person, the student should provide a brief note about who they are in relation to the story, and provide a phone number and an email address. 
   • If you ask the student to also upload a list of questions they intend to ask each source, you can check whether they are likely to cover all four pillars.
4. Problem re-definition memo: After students settle on what response they will report on, the problem memo may need to be revisited so there is background information about the specific slice of the problem that the response addresses. This is also an opportunity to ask students to provide the following, which will be folded into the story later:
   • A quote from at least one relevant person commenting on the problem.
   • Data about the problem that the response addresses directly. 
5. Interview transcripts: If you require students to upload their transcripts and highlight the four pillars (in four different colors), they can self-check whether they are getting the information they need for all four pillars, and you can provide guidance about how to fix anything that is missing.
6. Howdunit draft: Consider requiring just the “how” of the response (including quotes from people interviewed about the how) without the other pillars to ensure that the students are covering:
   • how the response was envisioned/begun;
   • how the response was implemented — what it looks like in action;
   • how the response is working, flaws and all.
7. Multiple story drafts: Time permitting — this might work better over a semester than a quarter — have students turn in drafts for critique before their final stories are due.
8. Pitch letter to an editor: This should be a well-crafted story pitch to a specific editor at a specific publication.

This is not a comprehensive list of assignments, and it doesn’t include in-class workshopping activities. Have a terrific one to add? Email me at Sharon Bloyd-Peshkin.