A Bachelor Degree in English Literature at UC Berkeley, two years in the Masters program in Composition at SF State, fifteen years of teaching nearly every subject in the English and ELD departments, and endless professional developments could not save this veteran English teacher from frustration and failure during today's reporting exercise.
Each of the 35 ASNE participants were expected to participate in a Q & A with the Dean of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism, Christopher Callahan. We were to take a photo, ask questions, take notes during the session. Following this, we went to work with two hours to finish our article and polish one good photo for our 'editors'.
Flashbacks of nights of burning the midnight oil in front of a typewriter in tow, I got into my zone as I quickly found an idea and ran with it, building context and setting up the main ideas like eggs in a row. With my lead set up, I realized that I was building a narrative that was too dense for its own good. I was trying to build good paragraph structure, topic sentences, extrapolation, example. I was starting to hit the delete button too often.
The structure of news writing, as Steve Elliott explained is much different from composition writing. It relies on putting the most important ideas first, grabbing the readers' attention from the start, and maintaining their interest throughout the piece. Good journalistic writing is concise, conversational and provides just enough context to give us a picture of what is going on. It takes on an impression of objectivity and reason, while reminding us that the writer truly cares about the issue or subject and of course the reader.
To make a long story short, this English teacher learned in less than 2 hours how the task of the reporter is brutal and thrilling at the same time. Today's reporter must be a capable writer, but must also be ready to take a photo or record video, edit media, and use online tools to publish the story. I just hope I get a chance to do the story right next time.
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I would hold off on counting your experience as a failure. Perhaps you did not create the dynamic story you envisioned, but you did get the first draft written, the photo submitted and most importantly, you admit that you LEARNED a lesson. Shoddy first drafts are a way of life for writers, journalists or otherwise.
ReplyDeleteThe old adage is that you learn the most from your mistakes. As long as you learned, it was a success.
Jeff Jones
Miyamura High School
Gallup, NM
Eric, I know we are not supposed to just agree with each other's posts, but ME TOO! I needed that reminder of how draining it is to be on deadline, and to want to be brilliant on deadline. I was less than. But, I'm OK with it. It was a great learning experience and an important reminder of how our students feel when we bear down on them.
ReplyDeleteIf any of my students read this, don't think I'll go easy on you! If I can do it, so can you!
Teresa Gallegos
Blackfoot High School
Blackfoot, Idaho
Here, here. I could definitely empathize with my dedicated student journalists who routinely pump out 5-10 items per issue. And to think that this is the only class we have, while our students are taking 5-7 others, competing in sports, applying to college, and basically trying to have a life. This experience also helped me to understand my perfectionists and why they get so frustrated with deadlines. I could've used another five hours, at least!
ReplyDeleteKye Haina
Kamehameha Schools Maui
Pukalani, Hawai'i