Who's Who Feature Profiles

Write a short profile 500-700 words about your assigned senior Who's Who winner.

This is a real assignment. The audience is not only your teacher but also the readers of the yearbook where I hope these stories will be published, so try and conduct good interviews so these stories are easy to write.  Ask open-ended questions. Get meaningful McCallum experiences and if need be, ask the person for the names of a few friends or teachers who could speak about the person well.

Nyla Gershoni -- Audrey/Claire
Haley Hegefeld -- Anna
Sarafina Fabris-Green -- Bailee/Demaris
Maddy Davenport-Dendy -- Alexus/Jack
Lilli Niester -- Sam/Steven
Hannah Wright -- Grace
Isabella Grossling -- Preshus
Lily Dickinson -- Sam/Ada
Audra Banks -- Franny

Some possible questions to ask:

Describe you most memorable McCallum experience.
When you think back on four years at McCallum, what are you most proud of? Why? Tell me more.
What will you remember most about McCallum? Why will you remember that the most?
Do you have any regrets about your experience in high school? Why or why not?
When did you know that you belonged at McCallum? Tell me more about that experience.
Describe your greatest challenge that you experienced here. How did you respond to that challege?
What is next for you?
How well do you think McCallum has prepared you for what's next? Explain.
How have you changed since you were a freshman? How did that change come about?
If you do anything differently, what would it be?

Drafts due -- March 8 (Tuesday)

Shattered Glass Extension Activity

Writer/director Billy Ray calls the film Shattered Glass “a cautionary tale about the difference between being a good reporter and a hot one.”

My hope is that people who see Shattered Glass will look at the craft of journalism from a different perspective. The New Republic, like The New York Times, is not an institution … it is a staff of people who in charge of an institution, and those people can have good judgment or bad judgment. Stephen Glass took advantage of their bad judgment as well as their good nature.

Where do you stand on the ethical questions raised by the film? How did Shattered Glass change your perspective on the journalistic profession? 

Before you answer this question, take some time to investigate the journalist assigned to you below. Gather the facts surrounding the controversy involving the journalist. What exactly did the journalist do to get in hot water? What were the consequences for the journalist and for his employer? How did this journalist’s transgression compare what that journalist did with what Stephen Glass did?

Post the paragraph reporting your findings about your assigned journalist then go back and answer the larger question I asked at the beginning.

Brian Williams – Anna A.

Jack Kelley – Damaris B.

Janet Cooke – Preshus B.

Jayson Blair – Franny B.

Johann Hari – Claire C.

Jonah Lehrer – Bailee H.

Judith Miller – Alexus L.

Julie Amparano – Ada M.

Michael Finkel – Audrey S.

Mike Barnicle – Sam S.

Patricia Smith – Steven T.

Ruth Shalit – Sam T.

Tom Kummer – Grace S.

Walter Duranty – Jack V.

Responses to Shattered Glass

Choose one of the options below and post your response to your blog.

If you want to earn some extra credit or if you really liked the movie and would like to extend your experience with it, do more than one.

OPTION ONE: The Secret of His Success

Journalists are supposed to be good judges of character. That's why it's surprising that Stephen Glass managed to deceive his New Republic colleagues for so long. Take a look at the episodes below from the film and write a full paragraph about how his actions might have offered clues that he was not the model journalist he appeared to be.

1. At a staff meeting, Glass entertains his colleagues with a story about how he posed as a behavioral psychologist to investigate talk radio coverage of a Mike Tyson fight.
2. On a visit to his old high school, Glass tells a class of journalism students, "A great editor defends his writers. Against anyone. He stands up and fights for you."
3. When a colleague chides Glass for compromising his career by applying to law school, Glass explains that he has to apply to make his parents happy.
4. Glass offers to resign when it is discovered that he misreported a minor detail in a story about a hotel room orgy at a young conservatives convention.
5. After tearing apart an intern's story for poor reporting, Glass explains, "This is The New Republic, remember? Nothing slides here. If you don't have it cold, you don't turn it in. Ever."

OPTION TWO: The Editorial Process

Suppose you had been a fact-checker at The New Republic when Stephen Glass was on staff. Do you think you would have caught on to his deceptions? Consider these excerpts from these Glass articles that are mentioned in the film. What details if any do you think would need independent verification? How would you go about obtaining that verification? How often do you think reporters rely on details that a fact checker can't verify? To what extent must editors and fact-checkers simply trust their reporters to tell the truth?

1. One Chicago-area school for Santas featured a 144-page textbook that provided instruction on everything from going to the bathroom in a Santa suit to rules on how to touch children.
2. Western Union now has a "Stop the Cassini" hotline, 1-888-no-cassini, which forward anti-Cassini telegrams to the White House for $10 a pop ... and Las Vegas is even taking bets on whether the satellite will malfunction. The approximate odds before liftoff: 1 in 70.
3. Take Joel Carni, whose family business, Four Acres, is one of the nation's largest political novelty manufacturers. This summer, stores will be hit with Carni's newest product, the Monicondum.

OPTION THREE: Editorial Standards

As portrayed in the movie, Michael Kelly and Charles Lane differ somewhat in the ways that they provide editorial support to their writers. Consider these actions and assess whether you agree or disagree with the editor's actions. After you consider these episodes, think about what they teach us about the editor/write relationship and an editor's primary responsibilities. How far should an editor go in defending a writer? How tough should an editor be in holding writers to the highest standards? Was there some point, before the Forbes.com story perhaps, when either Kelly or Lane should have discovered how Glass was manipulating the editorial system?

1. When Kelly receives a letter charging that Glass fabricated his account of a hotel room orgy during a young conservatives convention, he asks Glass to gather his notes so they can respond. When he learns that Glass did misreport one detail--there was no mini-bar in the room, just a rented mini-fridge, according to Glass--Kelly sends him home, satisfied that the story is solid. But once Glass is gone, Kelly calls the hotel room to confirm that guests can rent a mini-fridge as Glass has claimed.
2. When the publisher forces everyone on staff to circle every comma in the last issue, so he can point out what he believes are mistakes, Kelly confronts him. "These people...deserve our thanks, not another one of your world-famous tantrums," he tells the publisher. "I would resign before I'd allow you to bully them like that again." Then, hanging up the phone, Kelly announces, "The Great Comma Debate is history."
3. After Lane and Glass spend hours in a conference call with Forbes, during which the facts in Glass' computer hacker story become steadily more and more dubious, Lane sends Glass back to his office and calls the Forbes editor privately to ask that they spare his reporter. "You guys have uncovered something that a troubled 25-year-old has done," he says. "He could be very hurt by what you guys publish." But when asked if he still stands by the story, Lane answers, off the record, "I'm looking into it. ..."
4. Finally convinced that Glass faked every shred of evidence for the facts her reported in his computer hacker story, Lane finds himself confronted by other staff members who feel it would be wrong to fire him. "He doctored his notes," Lane tells them, "He lied to his editor." But when they insist that Glass only lied out of panic and needs help, Lane backs down. Instead of firing him, he suspends Glass for two years.

The Morning Anchor in the Morning

http://www.si.com/more-sports/2014/08/25/si-60-mourning-anchor-rick-reilly-bryant-gumbel-olympics

http://www.si.com/more-sports/2014/08/25/si-60-qa-rick-reilly-bryant-gumbel-mourning-anchor

I came across Rick Reilly’s “The Mourning Anchor” twice while researching on the Internet.  I searched for “best sports stories ever published” and the story came up.  I search for “best feature profiles written by Rick Reilly” and again the piece came up again.

Read “The Mourning Anchor” by Rick Reilly and then write a detailed response that answers the following questions:

Do you think Rick Reilly’s “The Mourning Anchor” deserves to be considered a great piece of journalism?

Before you write your response, please consider the issues below.  I encourage you to answer these questions separately either in your head or on paper and then incorporating those thoughts into your response to the larger question.

How would you describe Bryant Gumbel after reading this piece?  What type of person is he?  What details from the story give you that impression?

How do you think Reilly was able to obtain the information for this story?

Do you think the story is fair and balanced? Explain.

How well do you think the article succeed in climbing the full ladder of abstraction?

Are the moments described in the profile samples or signatures?

What is the essential purpose of this story?

What if anything do you think the reader gains from reading this article?

How do you think Gumbel reacted to the story (assuming he read it of course)?  What about the other members of his family?

Most feature profiles present the central figure of the story in a positive light.  This profile is an exception.  Do you think Reilly had an obligation to tell the story in the manner that he tells it?

The ladder of abstraction is a concept designed to help explain how excellent nonfiction narrative operates best. At the top of the ladder is the most abstract idea, a universal truth that holds meaning to all people. At the bottom of the ladder are specific details that are vivid and essential only to the story being told in the narrative.

Signatures are details that reveal essential aspects of a person's character.

Samples are less essential and are just actions that a character takes in a story or really in life in general.

Please finish this in class today so you can work on your story only for homework.

Current Events Discussion

Let's start our class today by discussing the results of last night's New Hampshire primary. I am posting links to a couple of article about the results in case you need to read a bit before we have our discussion. Since your other assignments for today involve a bit of writing, I'm not going to have you write and post for this one just participate in the conversation, make a comment or two, and you will earn a 100 as if you had written something brilliant.

What do you make of these results?

Why did New Hampshire voters send such a different message than those in Iowa?

How significant do you think this outcome will be? What's next?

New York Times -- Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders win New Hampshire

Washington Post -- Trump, Sander Roll to Victory

To get to the Austin American-Statesman - click the link and then put in the user name and password.

http://nieonline.com/austin/studentconnect.cfm

The user name is MAC-J

The password is Knight1!

Finding Feature Leads

We are going to look at some examples of feature leads today in the hopes that you will become more comfortable with the various strategies so you have them as options for when you write your feature story.

We are going to go over the rest of the list on the UIL packets we started on Thursday, but if you end up doing this assignment outside of class for some reason, you can access the same list by clicking this link.

PART ONE: Read each feature lede below and then identify what type of feature lede it illustrates.

PART TWO: Visit these two sites (Nieman StoryBoard Notable Narratives and/or Pulitzer Prize Feature Winners) and see how many of the different types of feature ledes you can find. You have until the end of the class period. The one who finds the highest number of ledes from the list wins.  You get a 100 percent if you find five, a 95 if you find three, a 90 if you find two, and an 85 if you find only one.  (Who knows? Maybe we'll find some great features to read as a class).

1. "When a man bites another human being's ear, he should be banned from boxing for life," Evander Holyfield said, pressing a handkerchief against the side of his bloodied head.

2. St. John's Church survived the 1868 fire that destroyed most of Bloomington, and it weathered firebombs thrown in anger during the sixties. But it crumbled last night under the weight of snow from yesterday's freak storm.

3. SILVER SUMMIT, Utah -- He sat in his chambers, unprepared for this. "Just giving you a heads up," his court administrator was saying. "Paul Wayment hasn't reported in yet. They can't find him." Judge Robert Hilder felt uneasy. Wayment was supposed to start his jail sentence this morning.

4. CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- In a dormitory lobby, under harsh fluorescent lights, there is a glimpse of the future: A throng of promising minority high schoolers, chatting and laughing, happy and confident.

5. HATTIESBURG, Miss., Aug. 10 -- Oseola McCarty spent a lifetime making other people look nice. Day after day, for most of her 87 years, she took in bundles of dirty clothes and made them clean and neat for parties she never attended, weddings to which she was never invited, graduations she never saw.

6. For many cellular phones are all talk.

But at NTT DoCoMo—Japan’s leading mobile communications operator—company employees are proving that the cellular phone can be much, much more.

7. Could Bill Gates still have the last laugh? Microsoft’s boss reportedly boasted to Intel employees back in 1995 that “this antitrust thing will blow over.”  Those words have echoed hollowly on each of the Judgment Day’s since, as Microsoft steadily descended into Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson’s three circles of hell-branded a monopoly, found in violation of antitrust law, and, finally, last week, ordered to perform self-dismemberment.  But Gates has at least one, and more likely two, lives left in this game—one if the U.S. Supreme Court takes the case immediately, as the Justice Department and Judge Jackson want, and two if the high court declines to hear the case until it goes through the U.S. Court of Appeals.  Maybe—just maybe—it will blow over yet.

8. In the cold hours of a winter morning, Dr. Thomas Barbee Ducker, University Hospital’s senior brain surgeon, rises before dawn.  His wife serves him waffles but no coffee.  Coffee makes his hands shake.

Downtown, on the 12th floor of the hospital, Edna Kelly’s husband tells her goodbye.

For 57 years Mrs. Kelly shared her skull with the monster.  No more.  Today she is frightened but determined.

It is 6:30 a.m.

9. On a refrigerated, colorless Saturday morning in the no-McDonald's town of Walnut, Ill., Kenny Wilcoxen walked along the street carrying the letter he had waited for his whole life, the one that meant that after 20 years he was finally going to ref the state high school football finals. On the other side of the letter, written neatly in blue ink, was his suicide note.  (This one has two answers because it combines two approaches.)

10. "To Whom it May Concern: If this letter has been opened and is being read, it is because I have been seriously injured or killed by my son, Sky Walker."

No one knows for sure when Trudy Steuernagel wrote that letter.

She read it to her ex-husband, Scott Walker, in the spring of 2008, when their autistic son, Sky, had grown so violent she sometimes had to barricade herself in a closet.

By then, Trudy's life had begun to feel a lot like that closet. Small. Dark. Isolated. Her ex-husband was gone, living in Wisconsin with his new wife and stepson. Many of her friends were gone, too, lost to the demands she faced caring for Sky.

Sky remained. But in a way, Sky was gone, too. Over the years, he had slipped away from her, retreating into the shadows of autism. The smart little boy who stole hearts with his smiles and hugs had disappeared. Left behind was a 200-pound teenager who overwhelmed her with his constant needs and his unpredictable, terrible anger.

Trudy spent her days teaching political science at Kent State University, where she was a popular professor. She went home to Sky and long evenings of his ever more rigid routines, girding herself for his next meltdown, and hoping the next medication would bring Sky back.

That spring, as Sky's violence increased, Trudy told Scott she had locked the letter in her home safe, in case the worst happened. Less than a year later, it did.

On Jan. 29, 2009, sheriff's deputies found Trudy on the floor of her kitchen, unconscious and struggling to breathe. They found Sky in the basement, blood on his pajamas and feet.

The next day, Trudy's brother, Bill Steuernagel, found the safe in Trudy's closet. The letter, a single folded page, loose in the pile of papers inside, would have been easy to overlook. Trudy's words were not. Shot through with sorrow and regret, they bore witness to her fierce love for her child.

Trudy Steuernagel died eight days after the beating, at age 60.

11. Guys love cars.

Put a teen or a senior behind the wheel, set him loose on a dirt road or a freeway at 3 in the morning and he is a free man, a king in his mobile castle, a top-gunner, a strong, tireless, cunning and faithful lover.

Jerry Bruckheimer loves guys who love cars. He produces movies for them, four-on-the-floor vehicles like Days of Thunder (Tom Cruise in a stock car, making two hours of left turns) and The Rock (Nicolas Cage revving a yellow Ferrari). Beverly Hills Cop, Bad Boys, even Top Gun and Con Air (planes are just cars on a highway of clouds) and Armageddon (grease monkeys in outer space), all celebrate speed, combat and heavy machinery—three things that make every ride a macho adventure.  A Bruckheimer movie without a car chase would be like a Woody Allen movie without whining.

12. Selling jetliners is a bit like peddling religion.  Buying one requires an act of faith.
13. One night, one town, one bullet, one kid.

The kid was Justin Mello, barely 16 years old, popular soccer player at Anchor Bay High School, with a melting smile, a tall athletic frame, a freshly minted driver’s license and a dream of buying his father’s GMC truck with the money earned working at a pizza shop.

The bullet came from a 9-mm handgun that was fired just inches from Mello’s head as he knelt, execution style, in a cooler filled with dough and cheese. The bullet ripped through Mello’s skull and exited his forehead. When they found his body, he was still on his knees.

The town was New Baltimore, population 7,000, a quiet waterfront community in Macomb County where there hadn’t been a murder since before Justin was born.

The night was Saturday, Oct. 21. Before this, sighs a lawyer in the case, the biggest problem in New Baltimore was the fish flies. Not any more.

Feature Profile Assignment -- Non-teacher worker

For your next writing assignment, I want you to write a feature profile of a non-teacher worker in the school (janitor, secretary, receptionist, crossing guard, campus security officer, cafeteria worker, custodian, administrator, librarian, etc.).

Ask them about the various facets of the job that they find funny, interesting, rewarding, satisfying, etc. Ask them how they feel about the work. Ask them also about their background and their life away from school.

We will read an example of this type of story in class today (Monday, Feb. 8) to examine what components or topics you can explore in a story like this.

It is unusual that a story can be written well with only one interview, but this is such a case.

Your final draft of this story will be due on Thursday, Feb. 18.  This will be a major grade.

When you have identified whom you will interview, please reply to this post so I know who your subject will be. Please check the replies before you do your interviews to make sure there are no duplicates. Everyone should interview someone different for this assignment.

Learning How to Write a Feature Profile

Based on how Monday's class goes (Feb. 8), the plan is for us to do this activity in class on Wednesday (Feb. 10). If we get behind, I might have to make it a homework assignment.

Read journalism professor Joe Gisondi's very helpful expository piece on how to write a feature profile. Technically, he is talking about how to write a sports feature profile, but the advice applies to any type of profile story.

http://onsportz.blogspot.com/2007/10/writing-sports-profiles.html

After you finish reading Gisondi's piece, write a 100-word summary of the advice he gives. When you have completed the summary and have a good understanding of the feature profile, please read, Dave Hyde's feature profile, "Where's Jake Scott?"

After you finish reading it, write a 300-word response in which you illustrate how the story illustrates the excellent advice contained in Gisondi’s overview, “Writing Sports Profiles.”

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2006-11-19/sports/sfl-spjakescott19nov19_1_noonday-breeze-defensive-lineman-manny-fernandez-front-porch

Here's the rubric I'm going to use to grade your posts. I think you'll like the story. It's one of my favorites.

Assessment: 

[       ] Cursory (75)   [       ]  Adequate (85)   [       ]  Complete (90)   [      ] Exemplary, thorough (100)  

Feature Exploration Day

(1) Read the two Jimmy Breslin columns that I have provided here and write your reaction to them.

Did you like them? Why or why not?

Do they illustrate the traits of good feature writing? I know Mitch Albom thought so, but what else did you notice that seemed typical of feature stories?

Which one did you like better? Why?

How would you describe Breslin's writing style? Do you think it's effective? Is there anything about his writing style that you think would improve your writing if you wrote that way? If so, what?

You don't have to answer all of these questions, but answer the ones that help you write a good response.

(2) View the presentation about features stories available at this link, If you were making a Top 10 of the MOST IMPORTANT THINGS ABOUT FEATURES that you learned by viewing this presentation, what would they be? Post the list to your blog.

Post (1) and (2) to you blogs.

Current Events Warm-Up Activity

I know we are talking features right now, but I thought a journalism class should probably pay some attention to the first state to voice its opinion in the presidential election: Iowa.

Spend a few minutes researching the results of last night's Iowa caucus. You can use our link to The Statesman or some other source then answer these question:

What were the results of the Iowa caucuses last night?

Who were the big winners? Who were the losers? What caused these outcomes?

What's next up for the candidates? Predict what you think will happen next.

To get to the Austin American-Statesman - click the link and then put in the user name and password.

http://nieonline.com/austin/studentconnect.cfm

The user name is MAC-J

The password is Knight1!