Posts Tagged ‘journalism’
Sis-boom-bah for DRAMA HIGH! Win a copy of Michael Sokolove’s new book!
My friend Michael Sokolove (aka Mr. Ann Gerhart) has a new book out, Drama High: The Incredible True Story of a Brilliant Teacher, a Struggling Town, and the Magic of Theater. It’s a great read, even if you think you know everything about the experience of high-school drama clubs, “Glee,” etc. I have three copies…
Read MoreThank you
My semester as the T. Anthony Pollner professor at the University of Montana’s School of Journalism has been one of the best things that’s ever happened to me. (Yes, ever.) Thank you students, faculty, Kaimin staff and especially Carol Van Valkenburg. And, miles away but often in our thoughts, Alice Thorpe, Ben Pollner and friends…
Read MorePopular Culture Journalism (JOUR494): Class recap for Dec. 13 — The final critiques
We were up before dawn on Thursday to meet one last time for a group critique of the final stories. The professor worked hard not to get verklempt, but that got exponentially more difficult when he was presented with this amazing poster (above), a gift from the class, designed by Carli Krueger. It’s a graphic…
Read MorePopular Culture Journalism (JOUR494): Class recap for Dec. 5 — life is long
Wednesday was our last official class, which I set aside for just general gabbing and pre-goodbyes. Any questions? Any advice I can give? Anything? I was prepared to just tell them what a real joy it’s been to be here in Montana and work with them, and, once that was done, let class out early…
Read MorePopular Culture Journalism (JOUR494): Class recap for Dec. 3 — reviewing the reviewers
Continuing my end-of-semester metaphor — this is what it’s like: Today, however, we turned our attention to the criticism/reviews that students filed this semester. The TV recappers — Heather Jurva, Levi Hunt, Caitlyn Walsh — had to file five, 500-word recaps of consecutive episodes, and did so quite ably. Levi nitpicked “The Walking Dead,” even…
Read MorePopular Culture Journalism (JOUR494): Class recap for Nov. 19 — scene story critiques
On Monday we went around our beautiful circular wooden classroom table and began critiquing the scene stories that were filed Nov. 7. Some of the stories have been published in the Kaimin once the writers filed to me first: Dustin Askim’s story on the campus Belegarth scene grew a little in word-count and became a…
Read MorePopular Culture Journalism (JOUR494): Class recap for Nov. 14 — Won’t you be my neighbor?
We spent a fair amount of time Wednesday discussing Tom Junod’s 8,100-word profile of Mister Rogers. It ran 14 (!!) years ago in Esquire and it’s still one of those pieces that makes me tear up. It’s beautifully constructed. Its paragraphs are dense but many of its sentences are deliberately simple, mirroring Fred Rogers’s way…
Read MorePopular Culture Journalism (JOUR494): Class recap for Oct. 29 — What is this REALLY about?
My day never really gets going until I read what Nancy Nall has to say, as well as her regular commenters. Reading her blog has been a daily habit for, gosh, maybe a decade now. Lately, both in class and in the Kaimin critiques on Friday (the student-run paper at the University of Montana), I’ve…
Read MorePopular Culture Journalism (JOUR494): Class recap for Oct. 17 — How they did that scene story
We spent most of Wednesday’s class period talking about the five scene stories I assigned for readings. These are each different kinds of scene stories, and I want the students to keep these handy as they work on their own scene stories, due Nov. 7. The first one is a ride-along (literally), as Dan Zak…
Read MorePopular Culture Journalism (JOUR494): Class recap for Oct. 15 — the divine scene story
We’re delving into scene stories now, and what do I mean by that? It’s a feature that’s not too long, heavy on narrative and vivid detail, that takes a reader into a place they might not normally go, or were too busy to get to, or don’t have the access to. Reporting on a trial…
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