10.15 Workshop, and introduction to journalism, CNF and => LIES

What we did in class.

Brainstorming:  scenes by focus
1. started by writing a list of ideas/realizations/feelings that you might want to use as the focus/aboutness for an essay = what you want your reader to "know" after s/he reads your essay.  This is not necessarily something that can be said in a word or even a sentence, so we will designate it as *****.
2.write the places, times, feelings, incidents, people associtaed with/important to ****.
3. write what you want to tell someone, what you want your reader to know related to *****
4. as you think about /write into 3, you might add to the places, times, feelings, incidents, people list for 2, and you might even slightly edit, add to, or revise 1 in light of more in-depth thinking about what you want to tell your reader
5.  write a scene that will get the reader to feel/know what you wrote in 4.  Use materials from 1-4 to develop this.  In this piece of writing, use description, setting, characterization - but NOT reflective narration where you interpret or tell what the scene means.   

Moving back and forth between directed writing for focus/scenes and the particular needs of a draft can help to sharpen & develop the focus for the piece.  You can also use it to create specific scenes - for the intro or conclusion or to develop one aspect of your focus.  Finally, you can also use it as a beginning brainstorming technique, to generate materials/find something you want to write about.  

Workshop
The last part of class you workshopped whatever you had so far for Long Essay 2.  You designated a timekeepr to make sure everyone had time to work on their piece, and then followed (approximately) the following protocol.

The group reads the author's brainstorming/plan.
1. Author presents an overview of the piece/the form & focus = what s/he is trying to accomplish.
2.  Author describes what kind of feedback s/he is looking for,
3. Conversation between author & peers about how to work on the piece
Talk about audience!
4.  Who do you see as the audience for this piece?
5.  What in your piece (focus/scenes/style) do you think will interest this audience the most?
6. How have you made this focus available to your audience?
7.  How might you make this piece more effective for your audience?


For next week: 
Read:  Smoking gun expose of A Million Little Pieces
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/celebrity/million-little-lies

Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/454/mr-daisey-and-the-apple-factory =>Read the overview at the preceding link, and then follow the link on that page and listen to the retraction episode =>  http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/460/retraction

A complete transcript is available at: http://podcast.thisamericanlife.org/special/TAL_460_Retraction_Transcript.pdf

As you read the reports on Frey and Daisey = pay attention to: the kinds of lies Frey and Daisey  told; and why the authors told those lies (not "to get famous/published", which is the obvious answer=> but why did they tell THOSE particular lies, how did telling the different kinds of lies change the way readers received their writing?).  Then, think about whether it matters  that they told those lies.

Blog 7: Due Draft long essay 2

I will be writing feedback for Blogs 4,5 & 6 over the weekend - so if you want feedback on your brainstorming, make sure it is posted.