Monthly Archives: August 2013

Welcome to Feature Article Writing!

This workshop course in FEATURE ARTICLE WRITING will focus on neighborhoods. During the semester, each of you will become an expert on your neighborhood by researching its demographics, attending local community board meetings, and, through interviewing, building a source list of contact people who may be community leaders, politicians, teachers, newspaper reporters, business owners, and/or residents—single or married, native-born or immigrant, young or old—all of whom contribute to the vibrancy of the community. What makes the neighborhood tick? What are its chief assets? What are its biggest problems? Who is in power? Who is left out? And, most important of all, how do neighborhoods survive/thrive in a period of economic turmoil?

Good feature writing is based on a solid command of structure, insightful reporting, research, observation, a feel for style and narrative, an appreciation (and grounding) in the writing of other fine writers, and significant re-writing. We will hone our feature writing skills through a number of in-class writing and editing assignments as well as several short feature-writing assignments (500 to 800 words maximum), one longer assignment (1000 to 1,200 words) and a thorough rewrite. Your skilled reporting, original research, and lively writing will yield feature stories that no one else has written before—little known stories about people, places and issues in neighborhoods that deserve to be told.  

In addition to formal written assignments, the class will publish a neighborhood BLOG, which you will post bi-weekly as a neighborhood reporter. The goal here is to share community coverage and, at the same time, give you practice writing for social media. For your first blog post, please comment on the May 18, 2012 NYT story, “Amanda Burden Wants to Remake New York. She Has 19 Months Left.” http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/nyregion/amanda-burden-planning-commissioner-is-remaking-new-york-city.html

See you all on Thursday, August 29th!