Introduction:
As we wrap up the reporting process and concentrate on writing, this is an opportunity to review the best-structured stories and consider options for planning and structuring your own stories.
Learning objectives:
- Consider your own writing habits and plans.
- Study structures other writers have used in their stories.
- Organize and plan your own stories.
Steps to completion:
Background:
- Read “The Things that Carried Him” and develop a paragraph by paragraph outline of it, summarizing each graf. Post in Module 7 with the tag “outline” by Oct. 17.
- John McPhee: Beyond the picnic-table crisis
- Clark, Part III
- Find a story from the Don van Natta list or elsewhere. Find an example of the advice offered by Clark and write a short blog post explaining in Module 7 with the tag “structure advice” by Oct. 19.
Reflective:
- Class discussion Oct. 18: Planning stories
- Class discussion Oct. 20: Structuring stories
- Class discussion Oct. 25: Writing plans
- Oct. 27: Workday
Exploratory
- Initial draft (top matter, nut graf, overall structure) due for team stories Nov. 4
- Initial draft (top matter, nut graf, overall structure) due for individual stories Nov. 11