The assignment for next week

You will find someone on campus that no one notices.
You will interview them. Transcribe that interview as part of your story archive.
Take 7-12 photos of that person being themselves and doing their "work" whatever that might be.

What is their story?
What stories can they tell?
Use your powers of language.
Use your power of description.
Use your power of structure (who, what where, when why, how)

This story should be 700-850 words.

Print it out and have it in my mailbox by noon on Monday, March 3.

Developing the Interview

Developing the Interview

This American Life

To The Best of our Knowledge

Part One – The agenda

• Determine the purpose or goal of the interview.
• Develop a brief statement that tells why this interview is being conducted.
• Specifically identify how this information will be used.
• Make a list of the information required.
• Draft questions that, when answered, will provide the necessary information to satisfy your goal. 

Part Two – Structure the interview

• Funnel Approach – Move from general to specific questions. This lets the interviewer discover the interviewee’s frame of reference. Move from open-ended questions to more closed questions with restrictive responses.
• Inverted Funnel – Move from specific to general. Forces the interview to think through specific facts before giving a general answer.
• Chain-link – Takes longer as it asks more probing questions. Sequence ends with a mirror or summary question which ensures accurate understanding interviewer and allows the interviewee to clarify, confirm or modify the information.
• Tunnel Sequence – These questions force a choice because the interviewee is given finite possibilities. Either/or, agree/disagree, approve/disapprove questions.

Part Three – Questions and questioning techniques

• Open questions – questions of feeling, perspective, prejudice or stereotypes
• Closed questions – yes/no tunnel sequence often needs more open and probing questions to round out the interview.
• Probing questions – Follow-up question on vague, superficial or inaccurate information.

• Elaboration – “What happened next?” “Could you go into that more?” “How did you feel about that?”
• Clarification – “What do you mean by the word BLAH?” “Could you provide examples of what you mean by BLAH?”
• Repetition – When the interview didn’t hear or is trying to evade the question. Repeat the question exactly as originally stated.
• Confrontations – Calls attention to inconsistencies, misinterpretations or contradictions. These are best asked at the end of the interview after ideas are established from open and closed questions.
• Mirror statements – Reflective or summary statements that indicate if the interviewee is being understood. “In other words you are saying . . .” Let me see if I am understanding you . . .”
• Neutral phrases – Demonstrates attention, indicates interest and encouragement to keep people talking. “Oh” “I see” “Go on” “Wow” “And then?”
• Silence – A powerful probe that gives both the interviewee and the interviewer time to think. Don’t rush through as this may be the only opportunity to talk with this person. Silence distinguishes the novice from the skilled interviewer.

Here is how it all comes together. Listen to Ira Glass. It is worth it!

Show me don't tell me

 Show Don't Tell Exercise

“You can take for granted that people know more or less what a street, a shop, a beach, a sky, an oak tree look like. Tell them what makes this one different.”  – Neil Gaiman

Answering the news reporter questions--who, what, when, where, why, how--turns bland writing into active writing.

• Write the following sentence on the board: "Mr. Smith is celebrating."
• That leads you to ask the following questions:
  • Does this sentence paint a picture for the reader?
  • Does it leave questions in the reader's mind?
  • Does it answer the questions who, what, when, where, why, how?
  • How could it answer who, what, when, where, why, how and paint a picture for the reader?
• That should lead you to these questions:
  • Who is Mr. Smith?
  • What does he do when he celebrates?
  • When does he celebrate?
  • Where does he celebrate?
  • Why is he celebrating?
  • How is he celebrating?
  • 
    

Rewrite each of the following sentences below with one or more verbs that increase the visibility and/or the sound of the motion suggested.  Do NOT add any adjectives or adverbs!

1.  He sat down.

2.  The puppy had a fine time playing in the park.

3.  The wind made a loud noise.

4.  He left the room in a tremendous hurry.

5.  She put the papers in her purse.

6.  The garden tiller worked quite well on the hard, rocky soil.

7.  She seemed to be feeling very happy.

8.  The old man went slowly across the street.

9.  The dog lay down on the rug.

10.  The boy drank the lemonade very fast.

Read the following paragraph and consider the ways that it shows rather than tells, and how that could be changed.

The Mercer men’s baseball team played hard throughout the game, achieving a score of 5-2 against Salem. Pitcher Matt Smith was particularly strong during the game, facing several league top hitters without any hesitation and pitching a perfect third inning with no runs scored. Mercer fans in the stands showed excitement throughout the game.

Rewrite the paragraph above adding description that uses at least three of the five senses (sight, sound, smell, taste and touch). You may trim out text and change or add however you like, but you must keep all the key facts.

Now write a short news story as you would for The Doah, showing not telling, based on the information below. There are errors in this so don't just copy and paste but look at everything. Show don't tell how people may be feeling based on the interviewing you would be doing:

1. At first, it seemed like a wonderful idea! Your schools president learned the wife of the President of the United States was going to be in the area. He proceeded to invite her to deliver your schools commencement address for this spring's graduating class—and she accepted. Now, opposition is arising. About a week ago, a half-dozen senior women began circulating a petition opposing her delivering the commencement address and, thus far, more than 300 of their classmates have signed it. "To honor the First Lady as a commencement speaker," says the petition, "is to honor a woman who has gained recognition through the achievements of her husband, which contradicts what we have been taught over our years of study—that women should be honored for their achievements, not their husbands." The president of your institution has scheduled a meeting for late Friday to discuss the issue with members of the graduating class.

Check out this writer's blog about the "dull paragraph". It is a different perspective and, I think, helps to define what it means to think about the setting of a scene. 

For Thursday

Take one at newspapers or news sites and read all sections carefully. Write down what you think makes news. Don't think just about the specific event being reported. Think what it was about that event that made it newsworthy. In other words, don't say the President's news conference is newsworthy. Say political policy statements by influential people are newsworthy, because they have impact. Use the qualities of newsworthiness we reviewed last week. Now, take those ideas and think about how you localize it for your hometown paper or for The Doah. Think about who you might interview. We will start talking about interviews on Thursday. Also, in thinking about newsworthiness, focus and SMDTM write a news story based on the following information:

1. Five students on your campus, all members of a fraternity, Sigma Kappa Chi, have been arrested as the result of a hazing incident. The investigation began after one SKC pledge was hospitalized Saturday with serious internal injuries and another with a sprained back. Each of the five was charged with two counts of battery. The incident occurred during a fraternity meeting Friday at which members "beat pledges with wooden paddles and canes and subjected them to other forms of physical and verbal punishment," according to Detective Sgt. Albert Wei, who headed the investigation. One of the two injured students, sophomore Roland Dessaur, was hospitalized for kidney damage and dehydration. Another sophomore, Eddie Muldaur, was treated for a sprained back and bruised buttocks. State laws require hospital officials to report injuries that appear to be the result of a crime. Thus, hospital officials notified the police and, as the investigation continued, four other pledges were taken to the hospital and also examined, then released. Several suffered contusions, Wei said. A university spokesman said both university and national fraternity officials are investigating to determine what disciplinary action, if any, should be taken against the fraternity.

Some writing prompts to get you started

This a a great and weird site

McSweeney's 

Cracked 

Blog prompts 

Finding your focus

There are six ways of finding the focus of your piece:

1. Zoom in on one aspect of your topic that you want to write about.
2. Combine two separate ideas to make an unusual slant.
3. Take an unusual stance: find an angle that is unique and new and develop it.
4. Look for Chalk and Cheese. See if there are any perceived conflicts or contrasts between your topic areas.
5. Answer a question in your article.
6. Finally, test your chosen focus by seeing if you can write a title based on it.

So, for this topic our focus could be any of the following:

• Was it something you ate? The growth in the number of adults suddenly developing food allergies.
• Food allergies in children: how to spot them and what to do if you think your child has an allergy.
• Food allergies versus food intolerance: what is the difference between the two?
• Do plants hold the secret of curing food allergies? A look at the research into possible cures being undertaken around the world.
• Are food allergies a western affliction?
• Is cleaning killing our children? The link between the hygiene hypothesis and the increase in food allergies in the western world.
• Food allergies: what teachers/restaurateurs/youth leaders need to know?
• Why teenage years are the deadliest. More children with food allergies die in their teenage years than at any other stage in life.

Stay focused. When you've found your focus, stick to it. Ruthlessly discard anything that doesn't fit the focus. Read your first finished draft carefully. Does it stick to the focus? Does it deliver what it promised to do? Does it go off on a tangent anywhere? If it does, then take that bit out and start again.

Do your readers have to jump gaps? Read these two paragraphs:

In pagan Europe eggs were decorated in spring colors of red, yellow and green and given to friends as part of the spring festival to honor the spring goddess Eastre from whom we get the name Easter.

The Romans invented the Easter Egg Hunt and a game called the Easter egg roll: whoever rolled his or her egg the furthest without it breaking, won. In Switzerland today, families roll their eggs down the mountains.

There is a transitional gap between the first and second paragraph. These facts are related, but not that closely. The reader has to stop a second to get back on track with where the article is going. They thought they were reading about the pagan origins of Easter and suddenly they're reading about Easter Egg Hunts.

Now read this version:

Easter eggs have been around a long time. The ancient Britons used to give each other brightly decorated eggs at their springtime festival called Eostre. And for thousands of years before that the ancient Egyptians liked to give and receive eggs too.

The Romans in second century Britain took the pagan festival and turned it into the Christian celebration of Easter. They kept the eggs and used them to invent the now-traditional Easter Egg Hunt. They also invented another Easter Egg game, the less popular Easter Egg Roll: whoever can roll his or her egg the farthest without the egg breaking is the winner.

This time, there are no gaps for the reader to jump. The paragraphs have been linked by the repetition of the 'eggs' theme and, as a result, the piece flows better.