COMM 209: Monday's assignment - feature story

Who: International Club

What: International Club's Fair and Free Food Fest

Where: Angela Hall Gym

When: 11:15 a.m. - 1:15 p.m., Monday, April 6

That's what the 8-1/2-by-11 blurb says. It adds:

Learn about other countries and eat their food. Free.
Have your name written in Chinese for $1.00

Your assignment: Cover this event and write a news-feature story on it -- in other words, a hybrid story with lots of color. Due in class Wednesday. Here are some details and techniques I want you to try.

Length: 750-1,000 words. More, if you want to write more.

Quote at least three people.

1. Find the person(s) who organized the event. Chat them up, and ask them what the event's purpose is, what they think of the turnout, "how's it going?" Ask them the same things you'd ask them if you were just having a conversation, but take notes and be alert for useable quotes.
   
2. Ask at least one of the international students what it's like to represent their country, what kinds of questions the American kids ask, anything else that occurs to you. When you quote them in writing, you'll have to decide how to quote someone who speaks English as a second language without making them look dumb. Tricky, huh? Let's talk about it in class.
   
3. Talk to some American students, too. Get their reactions.

Use lots of color, descriptive writing. I'd take notes on that stuff, too. You may feel dumb writing down stuff like "walls institutional green" but you may not remember later. (In fact, the walls in the Angela Hall gym may be institutional beige instead.) Are there basketball goals? Bleachers? Does it look like a small-town high school gym? As down-home American as a Norman Rockwell print? You might decide later that details like that would work in a story about international students on a small college campus, but you won't remember them if you decide at the last minute to go with that angle unless you've got a little bit of everything in your notebook. Get a crowd count. That's second nature for news reporters. Always get a crowd count. (The old joke is you talk to the organizers, get their crowd count and take the square root of it. Best to do your own, though.) Are people milling around, any music playing? If you don't recognize it, ask somebody who looks official if they know what it is. If they don't, they can point you to somebody who does.

Write it up. Use a "Jell-O lede" -- i.e. one that starts with a little anecdote or some color writing, seques into the nut graf(s) and goes on with detail from there.