This year in Ezine was, in general, enjoyable. We explored a number of design concepts, may of which I had never been introduced to before. Separately we learned about two forms of journalistic writing.
I did not particularly like the writing process. I felt that it was very limiting and constrictive, having to write for a magazine. This was unavoidable, but I have never seen any form of an interview in a food magazine except with chefs and restaurant owners (and we couldn't all do that). Thus, I had to make something up. I was pretty bored with the topic, and I didn't have much of a choice.
Also, I did not like the way the projects were graded. I think that I was a little too much to expect everyone to edit their pieces once or twice to get a good grade, and the minor details that we would later add to the A Master. I am not talking about adherence to the style sheet, like body copy and leading, but things like the folio. I had to spend an hour or so in class making fixing these so they matched the one that would go on the A Master. That was a bit of a pain.
Also, as far as the writing itself, we were required to use interesting verbs. I understand that we should be required to vary the words we use, however it made my writing sound extremely contrived. I think that in the future, it would be good to require verb variation so that it isn't repetitive, while letting students choose when to use descriptive language. As you said, journalistic writing is concise writing.
I did, however, very much enjoy the design aspect of the course. I was not particularly good when it came to design (especially at the start of the semester), however our designer was very helpful. I think it was a great idea to have designers come in and critique the layouts. Not only did he help me improve what didn't work with my pieces, he helped me avoid similar mistakes in the future. Yet, aside from his help, I got to experiment with new ideas. In this way, the design part of the course is fundamentally sound, because we were allowed to discover our own style of design--something that really appeared in the individuality of peoples' spreads.
The other thing I liked about the course was the introduction to Photoshop and InDesign. It was helpful in the creation of our layouts (I'm not sure we could have done them without the intro) and I was introduced to new aspects of the programs. I had used both of them before, and yet I still learned a lot. The main thing was that no matter how much experience students had going in, they all ended up at a point where they were confident with their abilities. Such was the course as a whole: both in the journalistic writing aspect, and in design.
