Posts Tagged ‘Popular Culture Journalism class’
Popular Culture Journalism (JOUR494): Class recap for Oct. 8 — personal essaying (continued)
Quick-like, today. Once more with the personal essays on popular-culture forget-me-nots. Koestenbaum on Jackie Kennedy’s Zapruder moment. Rakoff on the fact that “Rent” is a piece of junk. Franzen on the heartbreaking perfection of Charlie Brown. Yeah, yeah, yeah we get it. THE PERSONAL ESSAY. (Did you even do the readings? I have my doubts.…
Read MorePopular Culture Journalism (JOUR494): Class recap for Oct. 3 — Getting personal
Just a quick recap today. I’m in Shreveport, La., for a long weekend to be a judge at the first-ever Louisiana Film Prize, where 20 short films are competing for a $50,000 win. It’s a big street party. With movies! Check it out. Meanwhile, back in Missoula … On Wednesday, we discussed three (almost four)…
Read MorePopular Culture Journalism (JOUR494): Class recap for Sept. 26 — group critiques of essays
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…
Read MorePopular Culture Journalism (JOUR494): Class recap for Sept. 24 — scene stories
We’re a month into the semester, the pace is quickening, and the Pollner class is turning into a bit of a juggling lesson. On Wednesday, we’re going to be group-critiquing the reported essays. (Professor Stuever is also grappling with something he hasn’t thought one bit about since he left college: grades. How to grade? There’s…
Read MorePopular Culture Journalism (JOUR494): Class recap for Sept. 19 — beautiful (dark twisted) criticism
Gently onward, talking once more about great criticism and its role as a valid form of journalism. When it works, it’s a piece of art in and of itself — useful to the reader, filled with context and beautifully written. But try telling to that all those editors and publishers who, when faced with the…
Read MorePopular Culture Journalism (JOUR494): Class recap for Sept. 12 — writing criticism
She may be the fairy godmother of all film criticism, but the work of Pauline Kael (1919-2001) went over like a lead balloon as we began our sequence of classes on criticism/reviews. (Let me just say: I remember having pretty much the same reaction when I had to read her as a college sophomore in…
Read MorePopular Culture Journalism (JOUR494): Class recap for Sept. 10 — essay ideas
At the beginning of each class, ideally to limber up our brains, I randomly ask the roundtable of students to verbally “tweet out” a thought about something they’ve seen or done or had a mental blip about since we last met. (I totally, totally stole this idea from American University writing prof/lecturer Glenn Moomau, whose…
Read MorePopular Culture Journalism (JOUR494): Class recap for Sept. 5 — reported essays (Dam!)
Moving forward with trying to figure out how to approach the reported essay. We discussed some good ones today, mentioning their weaknesses as well: Didion on the Hoover Dam: An example of how to write about something that is beautiful and yet creeps you out. When something amazes and frightens you, you’re headed in the…
Read MorePopular Culture Journalism (JOUR494): Class recap for Aug. 29 — the reported essay
Wednesday in class we talked more about the reported essay, which the students are beginning to work on and will file on Sept. 17. What the heck is a reported essay? I think the adjective “reported” is there mainly to make those of us with journalism degrees feel a tiny bit better about publishing essays…
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