A weblog for Pete Ellertsen's mass communications students at Benedictine University Springfield.

Friday, March 28, 2008

COMM 209: Assignment for Monday

Take your notes from my "press conference" Monday, March 24, and the story you wrote to bring in Wednesday, and write the revised story for Monday, March 31. Consult the points we made in our class discussion Wednesday and today; the information box on organizing a story on page 47 in our textbook, and the "Kabob" story structure box on page 48. You can use my elaboration on, the one I call a "quote-kabob" story with the quote right after the lede; the rest strung along through the body like meat on a shishkabob and a "kicker" at the end. Think about saving your second best quote for last.

You can use the prototype we came up with in class Friday:
A crazed communications professor bored students to death Monday while defaming Bach.

Peter Ellertsen, of Benedictine University, compared writing for a newspaper to playing a ukulele. He feels that both are easy and difficult at the same time.

"If you expect too much out of a newspaper or a ukulele, you'll be disappointed," he said. "But you can do a lot with both."

Ellertsen was quoting media critic Ben Bagdikian, who said, "Trying to be a first-rate reporter on the average American newspaper is like trying to play Bach's 'St. Matthew Passion' on a ukulele."

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About Me

Springfield (Ill.), United States
I'm a retired English, journalism and cultural studies teacher at Springfield College in Illinois (acquired by Benedictine University and subsequently closed). I coordinate jam sessions for the "Clayville Pioneer Academy of Music" at Clayville Historic Site and the Prairieland Strings dulcimer club, and I sing in the choir and the contemporary praise team at Peace Lutheran Church in Springfield. On Hogfiddle I post links and video clips for our sessions and workshops on the mountain dulcimer (a.k.a. "hog fiddle"), as well as research notes on folklore and cultural studies, hymnody and traditional Anglo-Celtic and Scandinavian music. I also posted assignments and readings in my interdisciplinary humanities classes. The Mackerel Wrapper (now on hiatus), carried assignments and readings for my mass comm. students. I started teaching b/log when I chaired SCI-Benedictine's assessment committee, and reopened it as the privatization of public schools grew increasingly troubling and closer to home.