{"id":1293,"date":"2021-08-09T13:19:06","date_gmt":"2021-08-09T13:19:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/clearwaterpress.com\/coverstory\/?page_id=1293"},"modified":"2021-08-09T16:15:02","modified_gmt":"2021-08-09T16:15:02","slug":"syllabus-with-lesson-table","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/clearwaterpress.com\/coverstory\/about\/syllabus-with-lesson-table\/","title":{"rendered":"Syllabus with Lesson Table"},"content":{"rendered":"
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]PDF version of Cover Story<\/em> Syllabus with Lesson Table \u00bb<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Syllabus<\/h1>\n

Course Description<\/h2>\n
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Through 72 video lessons, the Cover Story<\/em> middle school Language Arts curriculum leads 6th-9th graders through the process of writing the content for their own magazine. By content, this course means written content, not photographs or page design. It is not a course in layout or publishing, though the last few lessons address these briefly.<\/p>\n

Students create short stories, poems, nonfiction articles, letters and many other creative pieces over the course of one school year. Along the way, they are asked to think deeply about not just their theme and subject matter, but about writing as a creative act. For each type of writing, they are led through a process of brainstorming, outlining, and analyzing that is meant to carry over and expand into the next section.<\/p>\n

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Objective<\/h2>\n

At the end of the year, your student should have created enough written content for a magazine. Although it can be fun to typeset the finished work into a format suitable for color printing, it isn\u2019t necessary for the course. However, we do strongly suggest that you print off your student\u2019s finished works and put them in some sort of physical form he or she can hold in the hand. A three-ring binder is sufficient.<\/p>\n

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Types of Written Content<\/h2>\n

Review
\nPoetry: Poem inspired by news story, acrostic, cinquain, haiku, limerick, senryu, found poem, free verse, and ballad.
\nArticle
\nLetter
\nShort Story (2)
\nBlog post
\nHumor piece
\nHow-to article
\n\u201cHow-everything-went-wrong\u201d article
\nAdvice column (letter and response)
\nAd copy<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Grading<\/h2>\n

See also ‘How to Grade’ section on How to Use Cover Story<\/a> page.<\/em><\/p>\n

Grades are based on a point system. Points are awarded for four things:<\/p>\n

Student Book lessons
\nJournal entries
\nCompleted works (poems, short stories, etc.)
\nUnit tests<\/a><\/p>\n

A few of the exercises have answer keys in the back of the Teacher\u2019s Guide<\/em>. The answer keys are not meant to provide every possible right answer. They are only there to show you the sort of answer you should be looking for. Creative writing isn\u2019t a matter of right and wrong, but of better and worse. (For a full breakdown on points and grading rubrics, please see the Teacher\u2019s Guide<\/em> (pgs. 15\u201317.)<\/p>\n

NOTE: The grammar component is not included in the regular grading scale, but can be added by awarding an additional point for every correct answer in each lesson. See the Teacher\u2019s Guide<\/em> (pg. 17).<\/p>\n

Approach to Grading<\/strong><\/p>\n

Grading may be done at your convenience. However, we recommend teachers grade all the work for each unit at the end of the unit. This amounts to spending one or two hours each month when your student has completed all twelve unit lessons.<\/p>\n

The main reason for grading at the end of a unit is that it allows your student(s) to be creative without feeling that they are being evaluated on their ideas. Many writing courses teach students to self-edit as they write. By separating the creative process from the analytical\u00a0process, Cover Story<\/em> helps students enjoy being creative. They need the freedom to jot down bad ideas as well as good ones, and that\u2019s hard to do when someone is looking over your shoulder. Waiting till the end of the unit also allows students to change or expand answers as they progress, instead of feeling stuck with their previous answers because they have already been graded \u2013 which can be an extra obstacle to creativity.<\/p>\n

Applying This to Groups<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our general suggestion to grade at the end of each unit is probably unrealistic for a group setting, considering how many students\u2019 work you may have to evaluate. It is fine to grade more often, as long as you grade piece-by-piece rather than lesson-by-lesson. We recommend allowing students a gap of time between handing in a creative piece and receiving feedback on it\u2014we suggest at least one week. It is much easier for students to be objective about their creative writing pieces after they have some emotional distance.<\/p>\n

Reading<\/h2>\n

Cover Story<\/em> students read poems, classic short stories, and articles (printed in the Student Book<\/em>), but the program does not involve reading any novel-length books. The assigned readings\/poems are:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Ransom of Red Chief\u201d – O. Henry
\n\u201cThe Interlopers\u201d – Saki
\n\u201cThe Lady, or the Tiger\u201d – Frank R. Stockton
\n\u201cThe Information Conspiracy\u201d – Daniel Schwabauer
\n\u201cThe Most Dangerous Game\u201d – Richard Connell
\n\u201cThe Necklace\u201d – Guy de Maupassant
\n\u201cAn Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge\u201d – A. Bierce
\n\u201cThe Sniper\u201d – Liam O\u2019Flaherty
\n\u201cWaltzing Matilda\u201d – by Banjo Paterson
\n\u201cThe Streets of Laredo\u201d
\n\u201cNovember Night\u201d and \u201cTriad,\u201d poems by Adelaide Crapsey
\nA few haiku by Soseki and Kato Shuso<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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If you would like to supplement with a reading list, one suggestion would be to look for books along a theme similar to the theme students pick for their magazine. For instance, if your student decides to write magazine content about gardening, assign books that involve a garden or farming in some way, or if the theme they choose is wilderness camping, assign books about outdoor adventures.<\/p>\n

Contests<\/h2>\n

Throughout the school year, we run five contests based on writing assignments in Cover Story<\/em>. For further details and dates, please see Contests<\/a>.<\/p>\n

About the Instructor<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Daniel Schwabauer, M.A., is editor of Crosswind Comics and creator of The One Year Adventure Novel<\/em>, Byline<\/em>, and Cover Story<\/em> writing programs. His professional work includes stage plays, radio scripts, short stories, newspaper columns, comic books and scripting for the PBS animated series Auto-B-Good. Daniel’s young adult novels, Runt the Brave<\/em> and Runt the Hunted<\/em>, have received numerous awards, including the 2005 Ben Franklin Award for Best New Voice in Children\u2019s Literature and the 2008 Eric Hoffer Award. The series culminates with The Curse of the Seer<\/em>. He graduated from the University of Kansas Master\u2019s program in Creative Writing in 1995. He lives in Olathe, Kansas, with his wife.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Lesson Table<\/h1>\n

The Lesson Table is only available in PDF format. It shows lesson topics and creative pieces the students write. It breaks the lessons down to show you natural breaking points in the course. If you don\u2019t plan to cover 3 video lessons per week or if you have to plan around trips or holidays, these natural breaking points should help you choose good places to pause.<\/p>\n

See the Syllabus with Lesson Table PDF \u00bb<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]PDF version of Cover Story Syllabus with Lesson Table \u00bb Syllabus Course Description Through 72 video lessons, the Cover Story middle school Language Arts curriculum leads 6th-9th graders through the process of writing the content for their own magazine. By content, this course means written content, not photographs or page design. It is not a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":311,"featured_media":1295,"parent":31,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1293","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","entry","has-media"],"yoast_head":"\nSyllabus with Lesson Table -<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We offer the Cover Story syllabus with lesson table to help parents and teachers plan. 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