Please provide one paragraph explaining your topic for your fourth essay and final feature. Include why you want to write about this topic and how you plan to do it. Consider what you already know and what research, both primary and secondary, you will have to accomplish.
For my next piece, I think I am going to talk about the relay for life event that happened this past weekend here at BSU. Organizations campus wide spent this whole semester raising money for this cause to come together and raise $77,000. There were student speakers sharing their story about how cancer has affected their lives whether they were survivors, caretakers, or left behind by a loved one who passed. It was a very eye opening and touching event that I think will make for a good newspaper feature piece. It involves a current event and a human interest side that I think will work well for this assignment.
ReplyDeleteOlivia-
DeleteI like your idea a lot. I agree that Relay for Life if a very eye opening and touching event that would make for a good newspaper feature. I think that the current events infused with the human interest side will be an interesting read, and I think it would be an entertaining feature to write about. Relay for Life is a very emotional piece to write about, and each person will interpret the story differently, due to their past experiences. Overall, I think this is an awesome story topic.
Perfect. It will be a great recap piece that can also serve as a pr piece about next year. You could include some contact info about how to participate next year.
DeleteFor my fourth essay and final feature, I was planning on doing a BSU street style feature. I would like to take pictures of students at BSU and write about what they are wearing, where they shop, and what they think are the biggest trends for this school year. I plan to do this by being on BSU campus and interviewing students that are wearing fashionable outfits. I will include a lot of diversified outfits so there will be a variety to write about. Additionally, my feature will consist of primary research, since I am doing it on my own. For secondary research, however, I will look to fashion blogs and magazines for inspiration. I will try to emulate the writing style and photography for this feature. Overall, I'm looking forward to this feature since fashion is a unique topic, but I think its great to try to write about what I see, along with interviewing people.
ReplyDeleteI think your idea is a great one is very unique. I like how it will shoe diversity and show that everyone is not the same person. You can tell a lot about what a person wears without even talking to them. You can tell what type of personality they have, their favorite color if they wear the same color all the time, what their favorite store is and many more. I also think this is a great idea because it’s something new and never been done before it’s an eye catching article. It can be an article that everyone can read it’s not just focuses on one gender, I know I would read it.
DeleteStephanie, I think this idea is a great one! I feel that everyone has their own style and opinions and using BSU as your main setting is perfect because we are so diverse. I also like that you're going to make it personable, taking pictures of random people, talking directly to them and stuff. It reminds me of "Humans of New York" in a way, except this is mainly on their dress and fashion choices.
DeleteYou already know I love this idea and it is perfect for a magazine.
DeleteMy topic I was going to write about is how Volkswagen is not who they put them self out to be. How they say they try to please their customers and give them everything they need to help them and fix problems. I was thinking about this topic because my first car was a Volkswagen Jetta 2003 and it got totaled by something that was out of my control. How there was a recall on every year for the same situation why my car got totaled but not my year. Also discuss how I don’t trust them anymore and will never buy a car from them ever again. I already know my side of the story and what happened to my car and how they recalled every year buy mine. What I need to do more research on is there business, how they say they help but don’t, and are they really good cars like they said they are. Also look up more recalls before 2003 and after 2003.
ReplyDeleteKayla- This sounds like a possible idea but to make it work you need to find people you can interview who have similar things to say. Remember these are not personal essays so you cannot use yourself as the basis of the whole essay.
DeleteFor my final piece I am thinking about writing about a librarian. I am curious to find out what a typical day in the life of a librarian is like. I am planning on interviewing Robbie a librarian about how she starts out her day. I am interested to see if she is a stereotypical librarian in the way she acts and performs her job. Also I am interested in seeing what she thinks about the college students and if she holds stereotypes about use like we do about her. This is why I am excited about this topic for my final essay.
ReplyDeleteSean Burwell
I guarantee you she will not be happy that anyone assumes these stereotypes are true. I have lots of friends that are librarians and none of them are like those "stereotypes." I think it would be great to show all the different types of things librarians do and who they are.
DeleteFor my final piece I plan on writing about the negative effects drug addiction has on, not only the drug abuser, but the people that care about them(family, friends etc). My hometown has suffered three over doses in a week and it is clear that there needs to be something done about this issue. Not only helping those addicted but helping their children, parents, spouses, friends, and so on, deal with this. Particularly I want to focus on my best friend and her family, because she grew up with a family member with addiction. She's allowing me to interview her. So I guess I am writing on how addiction negatively affects the family members and friends closets to you because those with addictions can lose them all sometimes. A touchy subject for sure but seeing my best friend go through so much over the years, I feel passionate about this issue and hope my writing can help her cope with what she's been dealing with, as well as others going through the same thing.
ReplyDeleteWhile I agree with you that this will be a touchy issue, I believe this will make a great feature. Your story, I think, will have a heavy emotional impact and I think it could help not only your best friend, but others who are connected to the drug addiction issue as well. My Facebook feed is constantly flooded with people staking their claims on how they feel about drug addiction, but I feel that I never see the stories from those who face addiction or those affected by it. Props to you for venturing down a heavy, dark path.
DeleteI think this is a great idea. I had done my talk of the town piece on drug addiction in the south coast area because it is such a prevalent issue nowadays. It was very easy to get information on, and unfortunately it was easy to find people to interview because almost everyone knows someone that has been affected by this issue.
DeleteGood luck!
Sarah Despres
This is such an important topic right now. I think you need to focus on the family in this story and not the victims so that it bring the focus on the silent victims that are often overlooked.
DeleteWhat I am thinking about writing about is the concept of the people from the suburbs paying people from the city to move out of their houses to move in. For a long time everyone wanted to live in the suburbs but now that it is a lot entertaining with tons of things to do they want to move back. This piece will focus on Boston and the Suburbs around Boston . For now this is all the information I know about it but I plan on asking people who have been offered the money to move out and what they think about it
ReplyDeleteDoes this really happen? I had no idea. I am curious what you find.
DeleteFor my fourth and final piece, I hope to write about the beauty industry. I have a crazy passion for beauty, specifically cosmetics and I could never get bored by makeup. But I do want to write about something more serious regarding the beauty industry. There's an issue where in America some ingredients that are present in our cosmetics are unhealthy and toxic. And the interesting thing is in the EU there are about 1,300 ingredients that are banned/forbidden from being used in cosmetics, but in the US there are only 11 ingredients banned. I personally find this disturbing especially as someone who is a regular customer of the cosmetic industry and I would like to shed more light on this issue.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very interesting topic that I'm sure a lot of girls who wear makeup have never even thought about it, so I definitely think it would make a great piece if you investigated further into this issue.
DeleteKayla Chernecky
Don't get me started on how awful the toxins are in our products here in the US. I recently switched to AVA ANderson products after being educated on how even the "organics" in stores have toxins. THe things they cause are awful. You could take the approach of making a survey and asking people if they are aware of these kinds of things. Then you could use that to segway to secondary research.
DeleteFor my fourth feature piece I plan on writing about how Americans watch television today. My focus will be on the way people decide to view their show. How Americans use Netflix and DVR instead of just waiting for next weeks episode to come out, many will just wait for the season to come out online and then binge watch the complete series. This will be a newspaper article that I plan to set up with pictures of friends using their netflix and having quotes about what they enjoy more about not having to wait to find out what happens in the next episode. I will include certain shows that I am watching on Netflix and my view on waiting for the next season to come out. I want to write about this because I feel it is a topic that affects almost everyone, whether you view the show right when it is broadcasted or wait until you can binge watch. I constantly find myself and friends discussing shows and it is a topic that interests me.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds more like a magazine feature. I don't see how an entertainment focused pop culture piece would be a newspaper feature.
DeleteFor my fourth and final feature I need to write, I was going to try to write about a new charter school that just opened up in my hometown. You don't hear of new schools opening up every day so it's interesting to see. It's not in the best of area either so I would like to see how the school plans on handling that challenge. I would like to interview the principal and get a more inside scoop on what steps need to be taken to open a school. Also, potentially asking other non-charter schools in the area what they think about the schools opening. I would make this my newspaper feature because it is a local story.
ReplyDeleteSarah Despres
Sarah this sounds like a great idea. You could do a number of things here- talk with parents and the community, just focus on the principal and the goals of the school, or do a combo.
DeleteFor my final piece I will be writing a magazine feature and I would like to base it on my strength and conditioning coach from high school who has been a major influence in my life and has helped me with my workout routines throughout the past 5 or 6 years. I want to write about it because I appreciate the knowledge he has on fitness and nutritional diets, and feel like I could learn even more by talking to him and picking his mind apart even more than I already have. It is also something that I feel many people would be interested in, as fitness is becoming far more common and people are becoming a lot more healthy as opposed to 5 or 10 years ago.
ReplyDeleteDavid Creed
SO you will be doing a profile? Sounds good. Now you have to decide if you will place yourself in the essay or not. It sounds like you do not need to and if you interview other students who have worked with this coach you can use them as support. It will most likely be a stronger piece to readers without you the writer being in it.
DeleteFor my last piece I want to interview my dad. I know the professor said that it might be hard to do a profile on a family member, but he grew up in Bolivia and I have always been very interested in what his life was like when he lived there. He came to the United States when he was 17 years old with his mother. He has lived here ever since and when I was 6 years old we took a family trip to Bolivia and it was kind of a culture shock to me since it is so different there.
ReplyDeleteI think you need to think about your goal here. Do you want to write about what it was like in Bolivia? DO you want to write about what it is like to pick up an move to another country? Do you want to focus on what it is like to assimilate to another country after getting here? YOu need to choose one of those and stick with it rather than trying to do it all. Also, you wouldn't even need to write it from the perspective of it being your dad.
DeleteFor my final piece I would like to write about the Boston Marathon bombing. With the third year anniversary approaching I would like to get the local's thoughts on the situation now that there has been time to heal and move on from it. There have been a lot of developments in the conviction of Dzhokhar Tsarneav and production of the movie "Patriot's Day", a film about the incident, has recently began. I want to get people's thoughts and accounts of that day as well as how they feel about it today. I will have to do some secondary research to accurately report on what happened that day, Tsarnaev's trial, and details about the movie.
ReplyDeleteKayla Chernecky
I think to do this you need to choose a narrow focus. There has been so much written about the bombings that you want to be able to add to it. You could focus on the production of the movie and discuss the plan for that by doing secondary research and then you could use primary research to ask people their opinions. You could even due survey or facebook post. You would want to ask people more local to Boston if possible.
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