Author
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.
We spent the entire class period Wednesday doing roundtable critiques of the reported essays. For the handful of you reading this blog way outside of room 301, this is where we’re mostly going to have to leave you out of the fun. When it comes to this part of the process, what happens in room 301 stays in room 301.
I split the class into two groups last week: Group A read all of the essays in Group B; and Group B read A. They were encouraged to mark them up like crazy. For the critique sessions, I put the essays in random order. We spent roughly six minutes on each — and we still have a few left to do on Monday, before we try to figure out George Trow.
Let me bring you up to speed and then slow it way down:
I’ve left D.C. behind for the next four months and driven 2,500 miles to beautiful Missoula, Mont., to be the 2012 T. Anthony Pollner Professor at the University of Montana’s excellent School of Journalism. The professorship is the gift of the Pollner family, in memory of their son and brother, who graduated from Montana in 1999 and was — like so many of us — a committed (and talented) journalism junkie. Since 2001, the School of Journalism has invited a professional working journalist/author to come live here each fall and teach a seminar course of his or her own design. The Pollner professor is also on hand to help advise (in a casual way) the staff of the student-run paper, the Kaimin, which publishes four days a week. I’ll also be giving a public lecture on Oct. 22.