Our Final Class
Greetings, everyone: For our last class, I have posted two short articles on our Readings page for Week 12 that I think you will find interesting and valuable, and which echo some of the things we have talked about during the semester.
One is by a teacher of literary journalism, John Hartsock, that discusses how the type of writing we have been studying in our course is a more natural way of telling stories than the “inverted pyramid” style of “objective” journalism.
Hartsock, a former news reporter, says the objective model is “dubious” because while reporters may try their best to eliminate their personal valuations from stories, “those subjectivities are still reflected in the very choices we make in the news selection process.”
The other reading is by Mike D’Orso, a nonfiction writer who talks about the importance of character in stories. In fact, he says it’s the most important thing.
“Action, setting, issues — all those things matter in a nonfiction story, but what matters most when it comes to narrative nonfiction is characters,” D’Orso writes. ”People want to read about people. More than anything else, we are fascinated — appalled, amused, delighted, dismayed, inspired, entranced — by the men and women who stand up and breathe on the pages of a well-crafted story.”
We’ll spend a few moments talking about these pieces on Wednesday night. We’ll also discuss a few more of your classmates’ story ideas, and we’ll have our final presentation of the semester, “Lady Olga” by Henri Viiralt and Nathan Griffiths.
See you Wednesday!
Gene
