Dr. Zac Gershberg
Journalism
Dr. Gershberg can provide workshops on news reporting with an emphasis on the basic story structures of journalism. This includes lectures and exercises on crafting ledes, interviewing sources, and citing proper quote attribution as well as a primer on the essentials of AP-style. With a background writing for newspapers, magazines, and the web, including Sports Illustrated, Dr. Gershberg will distinguish the expectations of writing across different media platforms as well, from newspapers and magazines to online news outlets. He can also tailor a lecture to focus on hard news, sports, business, or feature reporting.
Media History & Law
Dr. Gershberg can lecture on the evolution of media and/or First Amendment law in American history. He charts the rise of communication technologies such as the printing, the telegraph, the yellow press newspapers and muckraking magazines, radio, television, and the Internet. Along the way, he shows how these innovations impacted the growth of the American economy and its culture. Historically, events like the American Revolution, the abolition and women’s suffrage movement, World War II, civil rights and Vietnam, and the rise of Presidents Kennedy and Reagan are illustrated through media. Additionally, Dr. Gershberg can facilitate a seminar-like atmosphere for considering the First Amendment’s protections of the freedoms of expression, the press, and the right to protest.
Hollywood Movie Formulas
Dr. Gershberg has experience working in script development and can provide a lecture and interactive exercise about genres and the three-act structure of screenplays in the entertainment industry. Students will learn the essential beats to movies such as the setup, catalyst, b-story, climax, and resolution. To develop creative thinking skills and oral presentation skills, Dr. Gershberg can provide instructors with assignment sheets that allow students to come up with movie ideas and pitch them in a professionally simulated setting.
State Standards
These presentations meet the following state education standards for high school students:
Social Studies
U.S. History II
9-12.USH2.1.1.1 Analyze ways in which language, literature, the arts, traditions, beliefs, values, and behavior patterns of diverse cultures have enriched American society.
9-12.USH2.1.1.2 Analyze significant movements for social change.
9-12.USH2.4.4.1 Trace the development and expansion of political, civil, and economic rights.
American Government
9-12.G.4.3.4 Analyze and evaluate decisions about individual rights in landmark cases of the Supreme Court of the United States.
9-12.G.4.4.4 Discuss how the interpretation and application of the United States Constitution has evolved.
English Language Arts/Literacy
Text Types and Purposes
W11-12.2 Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.
W11-12.3 Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.
Production and Distribution of Writing
W11-12.4 Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
