A man of immense experience, AP journalist Jim Trotter shared with the teachers attending the ASNE/Reynolds High School Journalism Institute tips on writing and two articles from The Rocky Mountain News.The two pieces, "The Crevasse" and "Final Salute" were both charged with emotion and showcased writing at its finest. Trotter indicated that both pieces took a lot of time and effort to produce. "The Crevasse," a story about two climbers lost on Mt. Rainier, was published in five parts. "Final Salute," an in depth look at how families react to the death of a soldier, took a reporter and photographer over a year to produce.
Unfortunately the Rocky Mountain News is no more. America lost a great paper. Is the appetite for longer pieces waning? Has the era of sound bites reached print journalism? Producing such pieces is more expensive for a regional newspaper. I just hope that when one baton falls, someone else is there to pick it up. It is hard to replace a 150 year old treasure, however.
Don Anderson
Jewell School
Seaside, Ore.
I can not understand the distaste for reading that seems to have overcome the younger generation. If we do not get them passionate about reading, I am afraid that longer news stories have a bleak future. We have to get them reading. Like Doig pointed out, good writers read!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed the presentation and got a little choked up myself when he was discussing the wife of the fallen soldier sleeping in the funeral home with marines and their stories. It had a pretty big impact on me.
ReplyDeleteI 100 percent agree but how do we do it? I require my introductory students to read newspapers for 15 minutes at the beginning of every class period, but have to train them to look further than the "daily record" section or the comics. And then to get them to talk about what they've read is almost impossible as well. When someone finds the solution, please let me be the first to know!
ReplyDeleteAngela Carter
Winfield High School
Winfield, Kan.
One thing that I hope English teachers everywhere do is "require" outside reading. Then, by giving them time in class to read their self-selected book, we encourage reading for pleasure. By having a small library of highly engaging books in the classroom, we can sometimes hook a kid into reading. As for newspapers, I don't know but I believe that current events assignments can be helpful. If the student doesn't have access to a newspaper, however, the current event will come from the Web, and that's got to be OK.
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