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"Cover Story leads students throught he process of writing the content for their own magazine. By content, we mean written content, not photographs or page design. It is not a course in layout or publishing, though the last few sessions address these briefly. Students create short stories, poems, nonfiction articles, letters and many other creative pieces over the course of one school year. Along the way they are asked to think deeply about not just their theme and subject matter, but about writing as a creative act. For each type of writing they are led through a process of brainstorming, outlining and analyzing that is meant to carry over and expand into the next section. Because it is a middle school course and we didn't want the students getting bored, we decided to change gears frequently. We never spend more than three weeks in a row (nine lessons) on any one type of writing, though we do circle back to certain forms more than once. The idea is that even though the focus may change from poetry to nonfiction to short stories every week or so, the techniques involved carry over. Juxtaposition is used in poetry as well as in short stories. Conflict can be seen not just in fiction an dnonfiction, but in a haiku or senryu or ballad. Repetition and progressions of three can be powerful elements of letters and blog posts and limericks. At the end of the year your student should have created enough written content for a magazine. Although it can be fun to typeset the finished work into a format suitable for color printing, it isn't necessary for the course." --page 8.