ENGL 280 The Journalistic Essay      POLICIES

Course Description
The Journalistic Essay is a hybrid between the columns that appear in a newspaper and the personal essays you might have read in other writing classes. It takes a particular kind of attitude, approach and research. This class, then, is a hybrid between a Journalism class and a creative nonfiction class. The writing and reading you do this semester will use the methodology of good journalism—careful reporting—and the format of creative nonfiction—the essay—to develop, ultimately the journalistic essay. Such an essay is really a very accommodating form: it uses research and information to build a strong foundation, but it allows for creativity and experimentation in a way that traditional print journalism really can’t. As you will see, there are many ways such an essay could look and sound.

The challenge of such a course is that you may not have ever done one or the other of these kinds of writing—or even both. To support you as you learn this hybrid genre, we will work as a writing group to read and critique each other’s writing, and we will read and discuss the writing of professional journalist/essayists. We will use as our model for discussion and dissection of this complicated genre The New Yorker magazine. There is no better example of the kind of research and writing that goes in to the journalistic essay than this great American magazine.

As you develop your sense of this genre—sub-genre really, you will write informally and formally, getting feedback from me and from your writing group. The semester will end with each of you developing an individual portfolio, as well as a class publication of your collected work of the semester.

Course Goals
By the end of this course you will:

• Understand the journalistic essay as a particular genre and understand the various nonfiction genres that connect to and inspire the journalistic essay

• Understand the methodology of research and investigation that is required of the journalistic essay

• Understand better the writing process, from brainstorming and drafting to revising and editing.

• Develop a portfolio of writing that demonstrates your understanding of the genre as a reader and writer.

Texts
We will be using essays available as handouts, on reserve, or online from The New Yorker magazine as our primary text this semester. Additionally, we will borrow from the following:

Requirements
Attendance. Attendance is expected every class. You have one excused absence (a week’s worth of class). Every absence after that absence will affect your final grade. Missing more than three classes (or three weeks of class) will result in you receiving a failing grade for the class. Additionally, excessive tardiness will also lower your grade, and, finally, absence is not an excuse for late work. Work not turned in on the day it is due will not be accepted

Readings. The readings are pivotal to this class. If you don’t do the reading we will not have very much to do in class. You must come to class having read the assigned material for that day. We will write informally about the reading in class, and I will collect that reading. Successful completion of these writings will indicate that you have done the reading.

Informal Writing: The Writer’s Notebook. The Writer’s Notebook is the main informal writing assignment for this class. It will consist of any in-class writing I ask you to do, but the main component will be done outside of class. You will keep a notebook of potential articles that you could develop into your more formal reviews. More information on the The Writer’s Notebook is available on the assignments page for this course.

Book Club: Depending on the size of the class, we will read either as a class or in small groups a longer work of nonfiction, a book length version of literary journalism. You will choose the book from a list at the beginning of the semester. This project will take us the entire semester. It is a reading intensive, not writing intensive assignment. The informal writing you will do for this project will be done in class and collected in your Writer’s Notebook. More information is available on the assignments page of this website.

The New Yorker Cover2Cover Presentation: Once this semester you and a partner will present on a complete current issue of The New Yorker magazine. Presentations will be about twenty minutes long and, among other things, includes a writing prompt for your classmates to respond to. More information is available on the assignments page of this website.

Formal Writing: You will turn in informal writing for this class four times this semester, twice before midterm and twice after. Two are rather short and two are more substantial. Here is a brief outline of each assignment. More information is available on the assignments page of this website.

Talk of the Town: This is a three to five page first assignment that is sort of a high-end version of gossip. It is a short, reflective telling of news and stories of interest to the people in your community—in this case the Bridgewater State College community (students, staff, faculty, administration, and locals).

Profile: This is a longer piece, five to seven pages, on a person of interest, again, in this community. Maybe it is a famous person on campus. Maybe it’s just some guy in your neighborhood. But this is their story. Your challenge is, of course, to interview this person. That is the main focus of the research for this particular assignment. But your larger job is to make your reader understand who this person is by the story you tell about them.

The Critics: This is a short piece—about three pages—of review. You can review any kind of media you want to (movies, books, tv, music, videogames, whatever), but, as we will see, we aren’t all as qualified to review everything we think we are.  

Reporter-at-Large: This final essay of the semester is, like the profile, five to seven pages. It is the final assignment of the semester, and the one where you will do the most research as a reporter. You will combine traditional print research with multiple interviews, data collection, and perhaps even surveys to write a compelling argument about a subject of your choosing and design that means a great deal to you to say something about.

Workshops & Conferences. We will workshop all of your formal writing in class on some level. In the beginning, we will have small group and partner workshops to get everyone acclimated. Later, we will have full class workshops where everyone will read and respond to a person’s draft. More information on how that will work will be forthcoming.

PLEASE NOTE: In order to get full credit for anyone of the formal writing assignments, participation in the workshop is required. Failure to do so will limit the percentage you can earn towards a final grade.

Twice this semester, once at midterm and once at the end of the semester, we will meet outside of class for a one-on-one conference to discuss the progress of a particular draft and either your midterm or final portfolio.

Portfolios. You will turn in a portfolio at midterm and at the end of the semester. Portfolios showcase your best work as well as the progress you’ve made as a thinker and writer. What is more, the portfolio allows me to evaluate you on not one or the other but both. You will write an analysis letter as a part of each portfolio reflecting on what you’ve learned or not learned so far in the semester. More information is available on the portfolios link for this class.

Evaluation & Grading
You will not receive letter grades on individual drafts and assignments in this class. This will make some of you nuts, I know, but it really is for the best. It allows me the chance to give you credit for the things that grading individual papers will not let you do: this system, a portfolio system, allows me to count effort and revision and improvement. Even though you will not be getting letter grades on everything you turn in, you will receive extensive comments on your writing that should both give you a sense of the quality of your work as well as a way to begin to revise and improve your writing. At midterm and the end of the semester you will receive a final grade. These two letter grades will be based on the following criteria:

• Meeting all of the requirements described above;

• The quality of your written work, including how successful your revision work is;

• The quality of your effort in the class, in workshops, in class discussion, in your groups, in book clubs, in conferences, and in general;

• Your demonstration of a willingness to try new things, think in new ways, and explore different perspectives as both a reader and a writer.

• From my comments you should have a clear understanding of your progress in this class; if there is ever a time where you are not sure, come see me.

Breakdown of assessment percentages. Different assignments require different amounts of effort. The percentages that accompany each of the requirements in this class should give you an indication of the time and energy that each should take up in your student life.

Odds and Ends
Plagiarism. Plagiarism is taking other peoples words and ideas and claiming them for your own without giving the people who did the writing and the thinking the credit they have earned. It is dishonest and unethical. If you are caught plagiarizing in this class, you will fail that paper without possibility of making it up, you’ll be sent before the disciplinary board of the college, and you could fail the class.

Students with learning disabilities. Students who need special accommodations due to a documented learning disability must come to see me with written documentation of the specific disability and suggested accommodations before the end of the drop add period. We can discuss specific accommodations at that time.

The Writing Studio. Located in the Academic Achievement Center, on the bottom floor of the Library, the Writing Studio is available to any and all students at whatever level of expertise you might be at.