How many of you make a point by asking how many people in the room already know it, and then praising everyone who does?

This fall, I’ll be teaching my most content-heavy course — “News Writing.”   I have to teach a lot of vocabulary, along with research, interviewing, revision, and copyediting skills, in addition to crash courses in civics, criminology, psychology, and statistics.   

It’s too early to think about what gets to stay in the syllabus and what has to go in order to make room for the “Print Journalism Meltdown of 2009” unit.  But I’m reflecting on ways to make the obligatory infodumps more palatable to 21st century students.