Assignment for Week 7

1. Keep working on those profiles.
2. Come up with an idea for your final piece.
3. Read Part VI: Ethics.
4. Read "Access" and "The Road is Very Unfair" from Literary Journalism.
5. Read pieces posted by Mary and Regis.

Profiles, week 4 into 5

For next week, we'll read:

Memory, by Tracy Kidder, from Literary Journalism

This most famous of profiles from Esquire

Part IV and pages 140-159 from Telling True Stories

And pieces from Mae, Martin, Camilo and Maureen

You'll also be well on your way reporting your own profiles. Check in with me periodically about that, OK?

Week 2 workshops: personal essay

By now, you should all have turned in the first draft of your essays--both on your blogs and as hard copies outside my office door. I'm looking forward to reading them!

Here are your workshop groups:

group one:
Mary
Camilo
Maureen
Marni
Emily
Joseph
Colin
Lindsey

group two:
Elizabeth
Martin
Brittany
Toni
Jackie
Regis
Austin
Mae

Make sure to print out (from the blogs), thoroughly read (twice--once for a sense of the thing, and a second time to critique), and write comments on each of your group members' pieces. Ask yourself of each piece: what is it really about, on a human thematic level, and how do I know that? What elements of story are present? How is the piece structured, and does structure serve story?

Post 200-word responses to each of your group members' pieces on your own blog by class Wednesday.

I'll have a handout on workshopping in class, but remember that your genuine reaction to each piece is what we're after. There's no right or wrong as long as you're reading and responding in the spirit of being helpful. And it is, indeed, your job to point out what works, what doesn't work and what the piece needs to work better. Remember that's what we're here for: to IMPROVE our writing, to help each other move towards something stronger and more effective. Your best day in workshop isn't the day that your ego gets stroked because of your writing; it's the day you have clarity about someone else's writing and can communicate it. Once you can do that, there's no limit to where you can go with your own writing.

Enough said? For now, anyway.

Looking forward to class Wednesday. Email me with questions or stop by during office hours Tuesday.

Welcome to First Week!

By the time you read this, you should be a little more acquainted with this strange and wonderful thing called narrative journalism and eager to start practicing.

First, I want you to spend some time thinking about story. What are the elements of a good story? What are the stories that make up your family history? Why? What are the stories you tell about yourself, either to yourself or to others? What are the experiences in your life that have changed you? What are you thinking about these days?

I start the term with a personal essay assignment, because I think it's useful for you to understand the elegance and necessity of story by culling and crafting one from your own life. Feel free to blog about the ideas you're thinking about approaching with this personal essay.

Look at this quirky recent NYTimes essay.

Make sure to check out the submission guidelines for My Turn and Lives. Why not plan on submitting these pieces for publication? Journalists don't write in a vacuum, and neither do you. . . .