Learning media writing through simulated play
Students engage in authentic media industry activities, such as writing and developing ads, op-eds and speeches, through simulated collaborative exercises and iterative feedback and reflection.
Snapshot
- Educator: Dr Sonja Molnar
- Subject: MECM90017 Media Writing: Rhetoric and Practice
- Discipline: Media and Communications
- Study Level: Master’s
- Class Size: 100 students
- Delivery Mode: Combination of on-campus lectures and tutorials
Design
Why?
This design extends Lerner’s idea (2009) of a writing laboratory as a method for teaching writing through hands-on experimentation. Seminars take on the form of agency simulations, namely an advertising agency, a news agency and a political press agency, to allow students to experience the day-to-day tasks and challenges of working in the media. Students work in small groups simulating an agency team. This collaborative process is not only industry-authentic but also builds students’ capacities to co-develop their ideas with peers and present them to each other for feedback and further enhancement. This team-focused approach supports students’ testing and sharing their ideas in safe spaces (small groups) and co-learning together as a community of engaged embodied learners (Hegna & Orbaek, 2024). Further, it uses process-oriented instructions as a method to promote self-regulation in writing classes (MacArthur et al. 2021). Seminar activities scaffold students’ learning journeys through a process of writing and reflection towards individually assessed writing assignments, such as an advertisement, an op-ed, a political speech. Seminars are designed as simulated environments where students experience the process of producing media texts as a collaborative practice that requires negotiation, listening and consensus seeking, in addition to a broad range of skills, including writing, editing, promoting, presenting etc. Embedded reflection prompts within this 'real-world' environment highlight to students what they are learning and why (Morley & Jamil, 2020). Rich reflective opportunities were provided by the embedded multi-source feedback, including from their peers and educators, building reliable feedback to self for the final individual assignment (Black et al., 2021).
How?
Preparation and resources
The Subject Coordinator, Dr Sonja Molnar, followed these steps to prepare the teaching team and students for activities:
- Write client or role briefings for each of the agencies and discuss with tutors how to best guide and support students step by step through tasks;
- Run tutors through activities and show them examples of student writing from previous years to illustrate what they can expect as first drafts and how they can and should support students with feedback to elevate these drafts
- Alert tutors to common areas of mistakes so to clarify in tutorials and discuss how to best explain through connecting in-class simulations to students’ independent assessment tasks
The resources required for the simulations were minimal. Tutors were provided with tutorial packs, including slides for each step of the tutorial simulation. These steps were also posted on Padlet so students could easily follow them. Depending on the tutorial space, whiteboards or paper posters were sometimes used to collect and discuss students’ writing, such as ad concept or ad headline.
Activity sequence
Before each seminar, students were instructed to:
- Do the reading independently and take notes of key terms and concepts so as to able to explain and apply them in class
- Attend the lecture, which prepared students for the week’s simulation focus
Across the seminars, students were:
- Organised into small groups and given the simulation brief. The brief discussion included a revision of key terms or concepts crucial for the week’s tasks to ensure that students understood what they were being asked to do;
- Guided step by step from developing an idea to planning, scripting and pitching;
- Instructed to post their work on Padlet for note-keeping as some tutorial activities continued and further developed the work of previous weeks;
- Instructed to share their work with another team and give and receive feedback and suggestions to their peers;
- Instructed to reflect on the feedback and suggestions they received, considering critically if they wanted to adopt it or not.
Reflection
Reflection and revision are essential aspects of writing activities. They were embedded throughout each seminar in the form of individual and group reflections. In small groups, students were asked to share and discuss their ideas, reflecting on them critically and selecting one to develop further together. This collaborative process often required multiple stages of reflection and revision, demonstrating to students the importance of feedback and revision (termed ‘elevation’ in the industry). Hearing their peers’ reactions to their ideas built students’ confidence in their creativity and skills, especially when initially criticised ideas ended up as the favourite due to the collaborative process. Co-developing and co-writing helped students gain more confidence in their strengths and reflect and improve on their weaker areas. Students also saw the difference from first draft to final product, instilling in them a deeper appreciation for editing. The applied industry-authentic design of the simulations further required students to reflect on theoretical concepts as well as media industry practice.
There was also an opportunity to share their individual assessment drafts with peers for feedback.
Insights
After the activity, students had the opportunity to provide feedback through semi-structured interviews and surveys including qualitative open-ended questions. Students felt that the activity was an immersive experience into the real world of media writing due to the limited time and multiple changes involved in the activity. Students identified teamwork as the key aspect of the activity, providing motivation and accountability, collaborative generation of ideas, and soft skills such as communication and time-management skills which they developed together. Students also identified the combination of practical and theoretical work, enhanced understanding of concepts, the ability to see other perspectives, and the development of creativity as other important benefits from the activity.
Situating the activities in fictitious yet authentic industry settings, enhanced students’ learning by offering them deeper insights into their prospective future careers and allowing them to sharpen their professional skills. It was exciting to see how much students developed in their professionalism over the semester. Although writing and editing skills were still at the foreground, students also pushed their soft skills.
Resources
No special resources are required. Students had their own laptops, but paper notes would work too. Padlet was used for this activity to make groups’ outputs accessible to everyone, and whiteboards were often used for all-class discussion note-taking. A class space that allows for group work (for example: appropriate size and seating) is advantageous.
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References
Hegna, H. M., & Orbaek, T. (2024). Traces of embodied teaching and learning: A review of empirical studies in higher education. Teaching in Higher Education, 29(2), 420–441.
Lerner, N. (2009). The Idea of a Writing Laboratory. Southern Illinois University Press.
MacArthur, C. A., Traga Philippakos, Z. A., May, H., & Compello, J. (2022). Strategy instruction with self-regulation in college developmental writing courses: Results from a randomized experiment. Journal of Educational Psychology, 114(4), 815–832.