Telling Stories People Want to Read

GeneHello, everyone. Gene Mustain welcomes you to the website for Feature Writing, JMSC 0017. Visit it often to keep up with course news, readings and assignments.

Many feature stories are about issues and people in the news. They are "timely." But many others are "timeless." They are just about interesting ideas or people. Through quality writing, both types become stories people want to read. In this course, we will learn how.

Our April 12 Lecture and April 14 Lab

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Greetings, everyone: By Sunday, April 10, at 6 pm, by email to me, please submit a brief memo describing the feature story you want to write for the second of your two major writing assignments for this class (it is due on April 28).

We will discuss this in our lecture on Tuesday, April 12. Maybe by discussing them in class we might be able to think of ways to help each other in the research and writing, or refining of the story ideas.

Earlier today, Friday, I sent by email a message containing links to three of the stories that classmates will be presenting on in our April 14 lab. (I need to hear quickly from two other students scheduled to present the same day about what stories they will be presenting on so that I can forward links to those stories to their classmates.)

It will be to your benefit to read those stories before your classmates give their presentations — both to get the most out of what say, and, in the case of those yet to present, to help you prepare for your own presentation.

Lastly, for those scheduled to present on April 21, please let me know by next Wednesday what story you would like to talk about. A couple of you have already told me, but I need to hear from the rest of you so that we can briefly discuss them in next Thursday’s lab, or in Tuesday’s lecture, if I hear from you before then.

I’ll see everyone next week;l remember, for our lab on the 14th, we meet in Room 102.

Gene

Posted Earlier

Our April 7 Lab

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Greetings, everyone: As discussed in last week’s lab, please come to our lab this Thursday, April 7, with an idea for a story that you would like to talk about for your presentation either on April 14 or April 21. You can change later if you like, but tell us why you are thinking about [...]

Our March 29 Lecture and March 31 Lab

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Greetings, everyone: As discussed near the end of our lab on Thursday, we are coming up on the end of our semester with some matters to accomplish yet — the addition of some techniques and knowledge to your feature writing toolbox; the preparation and delivery of your presentations, and the completion of your feature stories. [...]

Deadlines for assignments

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Greetings, everyone: As discussed in our lab on Thursday, the deadline for your explication of “Raising a Milkshake to the Bride and Groom” is Sunday night, March 20, at 6 p.m., by email to me. A copy of the story is now on the Course Readings page, under Week 8. A sample explication that incorporates [...]

See Handouts Page

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Greetings, everyone:  I took the well-done explication that Annie Tai did of the profile of Han Han and rewrote part of it to incorporate some of my observations. I made these in response to questions that Annie and some of you raised in your memos over the last week. So, in her explication, which is [...]

Deadline for Profile

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Greetings, everyone: The deadline for submitting your profile story is Sunday, March 13, at 6 p.m., by email to me. Use this file name, substituting your name for mine, profile story gene. On the Handouts page, I have posted the “themes” or “central ideas” of your profiles that we discussed in the last two class [...]