Multimedia Journalism will introduce students to news reporting, interviewing and storytelling skills for print, broadcast and digital news outlets. Students will learn how to interview people, uncover news, separate fact from fiction, and engage a digital audience in a rapidly changing online environment. Veteran journalists who are experts in the fields of reporting, writing, audio, visuals, and audience engagement will lead students in training workshops to help them develop effective writing, research, and photography skills, and expose them to best practices for data visualizations and social media. Students also will visit a television news station to get a behind-the-scenes look into a daily newscast and meet UConn Journalism alumni working in the field. It will be an exciting introduction to nonfiction storytelling and the chance to learn techniques useful not only in the journalism field, but are must-haves in public relations, marketing and communications.

Students from diverse economic and racial backgrounds will learn about current events, the role of the news media, news judgement and journalism ethics. They will be introduced to nonfiction storytelling and give tools to sharpen their writing, research, and critical-thinking skills. Effective writing is the foundation of communication, and this course will help students communicate more effectively and clearly in their written work in the classroom and/or workplace. Journalism skills are necessary not only for reporters and editors but for those seeking to go into communications, public relations and marketing fields. Students will also gain experience using multimedia tools to gather and report news for publication on various platforms.

• What is news and how you can find it.
• How a reporter can best present a nonfiction story.
• Multimedia:
  • Photography: Tools and tricks for creating a well-composed photo
  • Audio and Video: Best practices & editing techniques
  • Data Visualization: How to turn numbers into an understandable graphic
  • Social media
• Field trip to a television news station in the Hartford area
• Ethics in a “citizen journalist” world

Leadership styles are reflective of your personality, your experience, and what goals you are trying to achieve. There are introverted and extroverted leaders. There are people who lead from the spotlight and those who conquer issues without seeking recognition . Together, we are going to discover the variety of leadership styles you are most suited for, develop your team work skills, share ideas, learn from each other, and have a great time.

At the end of this course you will be able to identify different leadership approaches and how each benefits a shared goal. You will be able to identify your strengths and weaknesses as a leader and how to best interact with others in group. Most of all, you are going to have an amazing time learning about yourself and others!

• Group work and individual reflection
• Low stakes public speaking and intrapersonal communication activities
• Leadership simulations
• Soft and hard skill development activities

Oliver Wendell Holmes famously stated that “the life of the law has not been logic; it has been experience.” In accordance with this observation, our Pre-Law course provides high school students with both academic and practical understandings of the law, legal education, and operations of the American criminal and civil justice systems as well as appellate processes. This course may be of particular interest to aspiring legal professionals as well as to those who have a curious interest in current legal issues.

Students leave this course prepared to enter a pre-law program at the college level with a more comprehensive understanding of legal theory, constitutional rights, as well as formal and informal systems for resolving disputes in the United States. Participation in simulations throughout the week bolster public-speaking skills. Engaging conversations centering on current legal issues feed each participant's intellectual curiosity.

• Study theories of the law and the U.S. Constitution
• Experience legal education by being a law student for a day during our visit to the UConn School of Law
• Observe the American criminal justice system in action by visiting a local courthouse and meeting with real-life judges and prosecutors
• Assess current issues relating to the civil justice justice system, particularly in relation to environmental litigation
• Participate in the appellate process by way of a Moot Court simulation based on a highlighted case in constitutional law

Students (and educators) too often regard the essay as merely an instrument of assessing learning, but the essay has a rich history as a creative genre.  In this course we will approach the essay as the creative, dynamic, imaginative literary form that it actually is.  Your approach to writing essays will not be the same and you'll never go back to the five paragraph essay again!

You will leave this course with a very different and improved understanding of the essay, and you will be better writers. The essays you write in the future may challenge some of your teachers’ more conventional expectations, but they will be better, more interesting, and more like the real writing professional essayists actually create. Your professors in college will be grateful.

• Students will become better writers, more independent, more creative, and more original.
• Students will choose topics of interest, explore genres of writing, develop their own voice, and write!
• Learn a little bit about the history of the essay as a literary genre.
• Read a variety of essays form a variety of essayists.
• Experiment with writing different kinds of essays, such as personal essays, op-eds, commentaries, and rants.
• Share writing with one another both for revision and entertainment.
• Play around with some multimodal forms of composition.