Ebert's Intern

Submitting Your Own Movie Review Using E-Mail

Your first project puts you in the role of a potential movie critic. For this project, you will pretend that you are attempting to seek an internship position under Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun Times. You have found out that he is looking for fresh young talent, and that he wants to see written review samples from all of his candidates. Specifically, he wants all candidates to watch a movie, look up his review on the Chicago Sun Times web site, and send him their reaction to his review as well as their own opinion of the movie as a Microsoft Word document. Details to the steps that you need to take are below.

Step 1: Set up a Yahoo! Email account

Go to Yahoo! Mail to set up an account, if you don't already have one.

Step 2: Where's Ebert?

Next you need to track down Roger Ebert's site at the Chicago Sun Times. To accomplish this task, follow the steps below:

Go to Google.
Use Roger Ebert's name and the paper that your looking for as your query to find his online reviews.
Find a movie you've seen that Roger Ebert has reviewed, and read the review.
Find 2 QUOTES in his review that you will use in your reaction/review.

Step 3: Write Your Reaction/Review

Once you have 2 QUOTES from Ebert to use, write your reaction/review. Your review should have the following qualities:

There should be no misspellings or grammar errors. Use Word spellcheck and grammar check to make sure everything is corrected.
The plot of the movie should not be given away. This is a review, not a report, and Ebert won't like it very much if you spoil movies for his customers.
The bulk of your document should be double-spaced, should be left justified, and should have a header on each page that displays the movie's name. Use Word Help to find out how to do this.
A picture of the movie should be included in your document. Again, use Google to find an IMAGE of the movie,and use Word Help and the links on the Word Tutorials page to find out how to place it into Word.
Your review should be no less than one and a half pages long, and no longer than two and a half pages.
You need to include at least 2 font sizes and 2 types of font in your document. You also need to set at least one section of text to either bold, underlined, or italic.

Step 4: Send it and End it.

If you've gotten this far then you're on the home stretch! Save your word document and make the file READ ONLY so that nobody accidentally types extra typos in it. Then email Ebert's assistant at the address: jfksac @ yahoo.com. Make sure that you CC yourself just in case the email doesn't go through. That way you have proof that you sent your document.

Rubric

Below is the rubric that Ebert's assistant will use to rate your review writing skills. This project will be worth a total of 40 points toward your final grade. Make sure you hit all of the important pieces. Good luck!

Category	Excellent (8 to 10 pts)	Getting There (6 to 7 pts)	Developing (5 or less)
Computer Literacy	Navigated through all tasks efficiently. Was able to use internet and help resources adequately.	Could not complete 2 or fewer small tasks. Example: Could not use two fonts in Word, and was not able to send email correctly.	Three or more tasks were incomplete.
Fact Finding	Found all required information. Presented the acquired information completely in review.	Found most information, and presented all information found.	Two or more pieces of information were missing. Example: Missing one quote and a picture.
Writing Skill	No grammar or spelling errors. Text flows smoothly. Good overall structure.	No grammar or spelling errors. Texts presents material properly in most areas. Structure and style of writing are fairly consistent.	Contains grammar/spelling errors. Text is not clear or consistent.
Group Editing Evaluation	Group members always edited and critiqued each other's work positively and respectfully. All group members were helpful to each other, and willing to lend helping hands. Progress was made on every member's paper.	Group members generally edited and critiqued each other's work positively and respectfully. Most group members were helpful when someone was stuck. Progress was made on most papers in the group.	Group members edited and critiqued work poorly. Group members generally rarely helped each other out. Little positive progress was evident in any of the papers in the group.