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Feature Writing: Chapter 10

Chapter ten in the textbook Feature Writing: The Pursuit of Excellence talks about how as a writer you need to be very careful in what you write about another person. If you are not sure if it is true or not, then you should not write it. You can always get in contact with the person and ask them again to see if it was right, but never publish it when you are not sure. In fact lesson number one to be learned is be careful and always check your work over and over again. The author brings up a simple point when he says, "If you've written something that appears to be libelous on the face of it, make sure you can trust your notes".   I like the way he wrote about notes as if they were the reason you might mess up, as if they were trying to get you caught. He kind of personifies the idea of notes when he says this.

Another interesting thing this chapter talked about was the example on page 290 about Janet cooke who won the pulitzer prize award but had to return it because she admitted that she made the whole thing up after people became suspicious. This teaches us as writers that no matter how easy it is to sit at your computer and type away a made up story, you cannot become lazy and unmotivated. You need to get out there and find  a story like everyone else in the business.

The Working Poor: Invisible in America

My book club group is ready to start working on the project. For our next meeting we decided that we would have a couple things picked out that we were interested in while reading the book. Each of us will probably have something different that interested us so we were thinking of splitting up the presentation in that way. Each of us could talk about a different chapter that interested us to get the point of the book across to the class while talking about something we like and know.

The two chapters that I am interested in are Chapters seven and eight. Chapter seven is called Kinship and it is about a poor family who has been through tough times and the mother has cancer, but they are still hopeful and never lose the real meaning of life. They do not let their lack of money pull down their will to go on. Chapter eight is called Body and Mind and it is about a woman who sees all types of cases of children being malnourished because their families are too poor to buy nutritious food. It talks about the WIC program that is available to these types of families.

Ideas for Newspaper Essay

For my newspaper essay I am thinking writing a piece about education. I am observing in a fifth grade classroom right now and I think it would be a topic that I could work with. I really like writing about the environment and the harm that is being done to it. I think the environment topic will be better for the newspaper and the education topic will be better for the magazine paper. I need to narrow my topics down to be more specific, but I know that I want to have my newspaper essay about the environment.

Some narrow topics can be a how-to paper on how to involve your household in saving the environment or a number story on 5 ways the earth is in trouble. whatever I choose I want to find a knowledgeable person on the topic so that they can be quoted in my paper.

The Working Poor: Invisible in America

What I read for today's blog was very interesting because it talked about children being malnourished as an effect from being poor. A woman by the name of Debbie Frank deals with parents who have malnourished babies or children because they cannot buy the right kind of food. The author states, "Slightly harried and tightly focused, she directed a blunt friendliness toward patients and an edge of anger at  the condition that brought the children here". I can imagine how frustrating it can be to Dr. Frank with all of these children who are unhealthy and unable to perform simple movements that they should be able to do at their age, such as lift themselves up or stand with their legs. I would be angry at the parents because there is all kinds of help that families can recieve to feed their families. They can go to food pantries, they can get food stamps, and they can even apply to a program called WIC, Women, Infants, and Children. This program offers new mothers, who are less fortunate and cannot afford food for their children, classes on how to breast feed and how to feed their child in a healthy way. They give out tons of money each year to the families in the program to buy food. I think it is sad when people have to resort to starving their children because they dont have enough money. With all the help out there they should be getting aid for their children.

Feature Writing

The book Feature Writing: The Pursuit of Excellence has a great section called Revising Your Copy. A necessary and crucial task for writers is one that can be the most difficult, revising. Most writers find it difficult to revise their own papers because they believe that there is nothing wrong with their own words. It is very hard to have to change your whole paper around with revisions when you thought it was perfect the first time. in the author's words, "each writer is his or her own worst enemy".

A good way to revise your own paper is to read it once over to yourself and then walk away for a little bit to clear your head. When you come back to it you should look at it as if it were someone elses paper and try to be as critical as possible. if you dont try to pick out any mistakes, you will never get anywhere. Always make sure that you have another person look at it as well, such as your sister or brother. Having others read over your writing is a great way to get a fresh set of eyes to find mistakes or awkward sentences. This book has really helpful tips on how to revise your essay. 

The Working Poor: Invisible in America

In Chapter Seven of the book The Working poor: Invisible in America the author talks about Tom and Kara King. They have a family of three kids, two of the older sons are from Kara's ex-husband and the younger daughter is Tom and Kara's. Kara has been through a tough time with money because she has had cancer and had to have a bone marrow transplant. Tom and Kara don't have extra money but once in a while they like to treat themselves and the kids to a restaurant meal. They scrapped up enough money over a period of weeks and ended up going to eat at a truck stop where the portions were very big. When Kara asked for  the check the waitress told her that a man at the bar had already paid it. This caused Kara to become furious because she does not like pity. When she got home she was still worked up about it and called the truck stop to talk to the man. Kara said that he said "We were so close-knit, and he was a truck driver on the road a lot and just wanted to do something for us. He was touched. This man couldn't believe we could laugh at life like that".

This story caught my attention right away because it is something that you don't see everyday. A truck driver overhearing a poor family's conversation and deciding to buy their meal. This is a very kind gesture towards a poor family who never gets a break with bills or any type of money situation. Kara remembered the truck driver saying that he counted that her children told her they loved her twenty times. The truck driver who never gets to see his family probably paid for the meal as if it was his family.



  

Talk of the Campus

This piece seems to be difficult for me to think of a good topic that I am sure of. I think I have some good ideas now of what to write about after some searching. My first thought was to write about the play that the school is putting on, The Wizard of Oz. I wanted to focus on talking to some people in the play and see how it is for them when they have to try and balance all the practice with homework and classes. Another idea I had was to talk about all the ways the school offers getting physically fit. I might do two short pieces on each idea.

The Working Poor: Invisible in America

At the end of Chapter four in the book The Working Poor: Invisible in America a man by the name of Agustin said something very interesting to me:

"The most important is that I have my children and my wife. I have a life that continues, so I can't say that I'm so poor. I also recognize that I don't have money. I have something to eat, and my children have their clothes and their shoes, and I feel good. If I say I'm poor, I don't know, maybe. If I say I'm really poor, it would be bad before God, and if I say I'm rich it would be too proud. So I cannot classify myself."      

This passage is about a man who has a hard time classifying himself. It is difficult to save his money because he has a family to provide for and he usually does not have a penney left over to save. This does not bother him because he is happy just having his family in his life. As long as his children are clothed, he is doing pretty well. I think that if everyone had this attitude towards their life the world would be a much better place. People would be appreciative for what they have and maybe everyone would be kinder and more understanding to each other. Some people are very involved with work and money and it ends up being all they have in life which may lead them to become miserable. Agustin has the right idea of how to look at life, you only have one chance so you can't be worrying about things like money.

The Working Poor: Invisible in America

The book, The Working Poor: Invisible in America, causes the reader to think about poverty in the United States in a way that they have not before. The author, David K. Shipler, introduces the concept of how the people who serve you food at a fast food place might not have enough money to feed their own family or the person that washes your car doesn't even own one. This is not something that we notice or think about on a daily basis because it is not something that we want to admit is true.

I came across a quote that made me see the bigger picture of poverty around the world. Michael Harrington said "The American poor are not poor in Hong Kong or in the sixteenth century; they are poor here and now, in the United States". Compared to other countries, the poor people in america would not be poor if they lived in a less fortunate area with the same pay. I think this is a positive way of looking at the poverty in America.     

As I was reading Chapter five in Feature Writing, an example of an interviewing process caught my attention. The first thing that surprised me was the fact that people who write for newspapers sometimes have to think of a topic they want to write about and then go find the perfect person to interview and tell a story. I always thought that they first heard of an intriguing story and then took action on getting an interview with the person who was getiing attention. Now that our class is doing a piece where we have to think of something that we are interested in and then go find a person that fits the profile to interview, this concept is easier to understand.
   
The example that caught my eye was one that a woman named Isabel Wilkerson from The New York Times had done research on. She wanted to write a piece on ten children growing up in extremely difficult environments. To find the perfect candidates she thought it would be best to look in places where parents would be trying to pick themselves back up on their feet, such as night classes. She found the perfect child by complete luck because the mother had walked in late after Isabel had already announced her purpose, but as the sheet to sign came around to the woman that was late, she asked what it was for. Another student said that you have to sign it if you have a child between the ages of 9 and 12, so the woman signed it. It was interesting to me how close Isabel was to missing the perfect chance for her piece. This example also shows how much dedicatin Isabel put into her piece because of al the places she went to just to find the right kind of people to interview.