Irwin Chen

Teaching / Syllabus

Design for Storytelling

Journalism + Design, Eugene Lang College, 2014–24

Journalism + Design
Eugene Lang College
The New School

Instructor: Irwin Chen

Course description

This course is intended for students who have completed NNDI and NNDII and will prepare you for rigorous, well-designed journalism projects. You will go deep into one topic and develop it into a final piece to be published online, with an emphasis on data and verified sources. Narrative structure, audio, . You will learn how to use design techniques such as data visualization, interactivity, and multimedia to tell a compelling, engaging story.

Learning outcomes

By the successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

  1. Use effective strategies for presenting complex stories
  2. Storyboard and develop prototypes in order to communicate with collaborators
  3. Use chronology, geographic maps, relationship maps, and charts to tell complex stories clearly
  4. Know when and how to employ different narrative structures and forms for effective storytelling
  5. Understand the journalistic ethical issues surrounding storytelling

Assessable assignments

Final Project

  • First Draft DUE 03/22/2022
  • Second Draft DUE 04/21/2022
  • Final Draft DUE 05/05/2022

Weekly Challenges

There will be 10 Weekly Challenges. They will be due Mondays 12 noon. They will be given a score from 0-10, 10 if you turn something in, 0 if you didn’t.

Final grade calculation

  • Final Project 50%
  • Weekly Challenges 40%
  • Growth 10%

Course design and expectations for participation / attendance

You will be required to either supply pre-existing research or a reported story in-progress which you will use and shape throughout the term for your final project, or you may choose an existing data set or research that has been published or gathered, or I will provide you with source materials and data from which you will pull your story. The point is: this class will not be spent doing the research and finding the topic. Rather, the focus will be on designing and telling the story.

Required synchronous class-time zoom meetings will consist of:

  • presentation of concepts
  • discussion of assignments
  • responses to reading
  • drawing
  • skills demonstrations

Assignments (challenges) will be given each week to practice and explore these concepts.

Responses to readings

There will be a series of assigned readings (articles, excerpts from books, videos) to which I will ask you to respond in the form of a single slide. I will collect all of your slides and these will form the basis of our discussion.

Attendance

This class is designed to be hybrid, meaning:

  • For class meetings that are required to be fully remote, and class will be conducted through Zoom. These days will be announced in advance, either by the administration or by me.
  • For all other class meetings, you will be expected to attend class in person. I will be present in person, and I will have Zoom running as well for students who are not able to attend in person. If you sign on to Zoom during class time you will be marked present. Kindly notify me beforehand if you need to Zoom into class. If you are neither present in person nor on Zoom, you will be counted absent.

Class-time zooms will be recorded and made available in case you are unable to join. I will post recordings on Google Drive the day after class.

If you are unable to attend class (either in person or on Zoom) please let me know at least 24 hours in advance, or as soon as you know. Doing this will guarantee that you receive an Excused Absence.

Minimum technology requirements

In addition to other materials, this course will require:

  • computer with current operating system
  • Internet access sufficient for instructional tools like Canvas and Zoom (minimal internet access speeds of 800kbps upload and 1.0Mbps download are required).
  • Headphones (recommended)
  • Webcam
  • microphone (computer or external)

Students should also consider that accessing the internet through a shared connection or wireless network (wi-fi) may affect connectivity and slow down internet speed. If possible, a wired connection is recommended.

Attending synchronous zoom class meetings via phone is not recommended.

Class Schedule

1.1   Introductions
1.2   Orality

2.1   Kinetic Typography
2.2   Narrative Structure

3.1   Storyboarding
3.2   Framing

4.1   Illustration
4.2   Editing

5.1   Perspective / POV
5.2   Chronology

6.1   Geography
6.2   Relationships

7.1   Interactive
7.2   In-Class Workshop

8.1   Visualization
8.2   Fact-Checking

9.1   Against Storytelling
9.2   In-Class Workshop

10.1  Games
10.2  In-Class Workshop

11.1  Immersion
11.2  In-Class Workshop

12.1  Parallax
12.2  In-Class Workshop

13.1  In-Class Workshop
13.2  In-Class Workshop

14.1  In-Class Workshop
14.2  In-Class Workshop

15.1  Final Presentations
15.2  Final Presentations