Searching for Stories with the Pros

Feature writers show discipline in their reporting and their fidelity to the truth, yet they also take risks in their use of language and narrative structure.  We are going to take a look a some professional examples of this type of narrative journalism (a fancy term for the type of nonfiction writing using the narrative techniques explained in the Hawthorne reading we did last class).

We are going to start by reading, Jon Franklin's "Ms. Kelly's Monster" together. As I said last class period, it was the first story to win a Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. After we read the story, we will discuss it using the questions below to guide our discussion.

1.  What is the significance of the story? How does the writer show that the subject’s story is bigger and more important than the experience of one person (or place)?

2.  To what extent does the writer insert him / herself into the narrative? How does that affect the article’s objectivity?  How does it affect the article's transparency?

3.  How does the writer veer away from traditional newswriting? In other words, how does the reporter put into practice the advice that Hawthorne offered in our reading from last class. Find examples of literary devices (metaphors, similes, imagery, symbolism).

4.  How did the writer report this story? How many sources were used? How much time seems to have spent in the reporting process? How much of the article do you think was based on interviews? How much on the reporters direct observation?

5.  Find three particularly powerful quotes. Infer: What questions do you think the reporter would have asked in order to get these responses?

After we conclude our discussion, I am going to assign you one of the articles below. Please read the article and (hopefully) enjoy it. These are all great stories. Some of them are long but worth the time to read them. After you finish reading, go back and use the above questions to analyze the feature article you have been assigned. After you are finished, you will discuss the article with your classmates who read the same article, then you will share the article with the rest of the class.

Article links:

The American Man at Age Ten by Susan Orlean  

When Your Dream Dies by Rick Reilly

Sheltering Sky by Joanna Connors

Megacity by George Packer