Well, here's a story in today's Washington Post that qualifies. It's a dog story, too, about how dogs that flunk out of obedience school find a new life as guard dogs in the Middle East.
Here's the lede, by Washington Post staff writer Laura Blumenfeld. It's a standard Newsweek-style soft lede -- I've heard them called a Jell-O lede or a marshmallow lede -- that catches the reader's attention by telling a little story. In this case, a couple of little stories:
The day before Ricky Bobby Baby Jesus was scheduled to die by an injection of pentobarbital, along came the cookie lady. She brought dog biscuits to the Howard County Animal Shelter. When she saw the yellow Labrador -- evicted for feistiness from three homes -- leap to catch a ball, she had an idea.And here's the nut graf. See how it sums up the story in a nutshell? That's why a nut graf is called that. And "graf," by the way, isn't a misspelled graphic. It's a paragraph. Anyway, here it is:
In a New York prison, Mary Jane, a black Labrador raised by a convicted murderer, was balled up in her cell. Bred from guide-dog stock and trained in an inmate program, Mary Jane flunked her test. "She lacks self-confidence," the evaluators noted. The convict sat on the cell floor and rubbed Mary Jane's belly, reading "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" out loud to her.
How Ricky Bobby Baby Jesus and Mary Jane went from being underachieving curs to canines sniffing out terrorists in Rabat, Morocco, is the story of how some Americans -- or at least their dogs -- are finding second chances through the war on al-Qaeda.
In a 16-week program jointly run by the Justice and State departments, the two dogs, along with four other Labradors, transformed themselves from losers to potential lifesavers. Each canine teamed up for training in the Shenandoah Valley with a Moroccan law enforcement official. They would join more than 700 American dogs who have been deployed with foreign counterterrorism forces.Read it! I think you'll enjoy it, especially if you like dogs and even more if you can't resist an undisciplined goofball of a dog. You know, the kind of dogs that will never win a dog show.
But also read it for style. Read it for the way the story's put together. Look for the odd little details that make the story come alive. Ask yourself: How did the reporter get that bit of information? Here's an example: When the dog handlers from Morocco ask, "Where's Wal-Mart? Where's Circuit City? Where's Potomac Mills?" Did she see it? Hear it? Did someone let it slip during an interview? How does she let you know? (That's called attribution.) Look for her story-telling technique. What writer's tricks does she use that you can use in your own writing?
Publish your responses as comments to this blogpost, and we'll talk about them in class. Here's how:
Scroll down to the bottom of this post. On the right side of the last line, there will be a link that says "Posted by Pete # 7:42 AM ___ comments" (with a number filled in where I've left a blank, depending on how many comments have been posted). Click on that " ___ comments" link and fill in the comment field on the right. Sign in. You'll have to do something to register for Blogger. Do it. Make a note of the username and password you choose because we'll keep on posting to the blog, and if you don't make a note you'll forget it. Believe me. This is something we have learned by experience! Review your comment and publish it by clicking on "Publish Your Comment." And that's how you publish your comment. Logical, isn't it?
