Newsletter/Instructional handout
The newsletter/instructional handout assignment demonstrates your ability
to integrate text and graphics in a printed document. The assignment is
to create either a newsletter or a handout that you would use to support
instruction in your classroom. You might choose a topic related to your
work sample, or one that is related to a unit your cooperating teacher
is carrying out, or one that relates to another assignment in another class
(e.g. Daniel Duarte's Learning Communities course). In class we demonstrated
how to make a newletter using Microsoft Word. There is a handout in the
coursepack called "Creating a Newsletter" that goes over this same material.
In the coursepack there is also a handout called "Newsletter News" that
describes how to use ClarisWorks/AppleWorks to do the same task. For our
assignment you may use any word processor or desktop publishing software
(e.g. PageMaker, Quark Express, MS Publisher) to complete the assignment.
Requirements:
1. The newsletter/instructional handout must be at least 2 pages in length
(see the samples in the course pack). You will turn in a printout.
2. The newsletter/instructional handout must have at least 1 scanned
image. NOTE: Include a copy of the item that you scanned with your newsletter
when you turn it in. A xerox copy of the scanned item will work fine--the
point is that I must be able to determine that you scanned in the item.
Please note that the most frequent mistake students make in this assignment
is that they make their scan too large in terms of the memory required
to show the image. When you scan, choose the correct output type (600 dpi
laserprinter), crop your image to the right size in the scanner software,
and that should help. Your final scanned image ought to be around 150-200
KB at the most.
Content of this assignment
I can think of at least two ways of thinking about the newsletter assignment.
You might want to make the newsletter teacher-authored, giving information
to parents about what your students have been studying. Or you might prefer
making it student-authored, perhaps with a teacher editorial. In this case
of course you have to play the role of the students, but I do think that
parents are much more likely to read something their children wrote than
something the teacher wrote.
As for instructional handouts, one idea would be to scan in a graphic
of something like a plant cell, then use text boxes to correctly label
the parts, and include an informative text box or two about the key features
of plant cells.
EDUC 537 homepage