Next Two Weeks

Week Thirteen/April 27

A working outline of your profile, plus a scene - can be a sketch and not in finished form - from your profile that can stand by itself is due Tuesday 5/5. Ideally, this scene will be a draft of either your introduction or your conclusion, though this may too early to be sure how you are going to organize your story. However, even though this is a tentative decision that may be reversed, tell me why this scene might serve as intro or conclusion. Refer to Jon Franklin’s ideas in these comments.

Your profile is due Tuesday 5/12.

You need to put all your stories online so that we can "build a magazine" in class.
 

Some Favorite Stories

Electric Man from the New Yorker

Poynter Analyzes Some Leads

Here's the link.

Slippery Slope....

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FILE UNDER: GRANT PROPOSALS I WISH I’D WRITTEN

– From the Penn State release

Arthur Raney (Florida State University), Mary Beth Oliver (Penn State), Sophie Janicke(University of Arkansas) and Robert Jones (Public Religion Research Institute) will spend the next three years researching whether good news can help make us better people.

The proposal that got them $1.95 million from the John Templeton Foundation was titled, “Your Daily Dose of Inspiration: Exploring How People Use and Are Impacted by Media Content that Elicits Self-Transcendent Emotions.”

From the Penn State release:

Inspirational media can take many forms: viral videos, social media, television and films, and even newspaper stories.

The research team will take a deeper look at what makes media inspiring, who seeks out such content and why, and how people use it to stimulate positive emotions. It will also explore how those emotional experiences might build character and promote greater care and concern for other people.

I’ve asked lead researcher Raney if he’ll share his proposal with us. Update - “The proposal is actually quite long and (at times) technical/jargony,” Raney writes in an email. “So, we have no plans to post it. However, we will launch a website this Fall for the project (which officially begins in August). It will contain information that might prove interesting to you and your readers.”

* Researchers earn $1.95 million grants to study feel-good stories (psu.edu)

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Assignment for Tuesday, April 28

Profiles in Folly (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

* Find a profile you like - or dislike.

* Share with class, either hard copy or link that I can project.

* Talk about it for 10 minutes or so in class. Why do you like or dislike it? In what ways is it an example for your own writing? What are its reasons for existing?

Related articles

• Vogue Profiles Its First-Ever Transgender Model
• The Perfect Linkedin Profile

Pulitzer for Feature Writing 2015

link

plus what's up with another winner

Jim Sheeler and the Death Story

Image of scene from Grimm Brothers story Godfather Death. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Jim Sheeler talking about obit writing

Photos from Jim Sheeler's Pultizer winner, the Final Salute

Here's an interview he did with an 'amateur'


What finally are the implications of our stories? Do they prompt action or discourage it? Do they change our attitudes or threaten them? Here's a link to quote/counterquote.