Day in the life stories

Sarah Schweitzer's story "Together despite all, glimpsing the distant finish" is a beautifully written and well-crafted story. Schweitzer's close observations make for very captivating and real scenes while her in-depth reporting creates an interesting background and tells a very emotional story. The story of Marc and Jen gives readers an inside look of life beyond the news cameras for a victim of the marathon bombing. The scenes of arguments and then compassion make the story feel even more real because that is the nature of strong relationships. How does a couple handle such a devastating tragedy? How do they adjust their lives to adapt to these new circumstances? How does their child deal with this situation, one he may still not fully understand? This story does a great job analyzing these question. I am really looking forward to listening to Schweitzer speak and talk about her experiences, especially with reporting this story.

I also read "Reading Underground" and "Elite Korean Schools, Forging Ivy League Skills." Each of these stories were also good and interesting in their own way. "Reading Underground" had a very interesting angle. The story observes scenes around the New York subway system and how people are always reading. I enjoyed the writers well crafted descriptions as they paint a nice picture of the scenes that take place underground. The Korean school story was very interesting and somewhat disturbing. The amount these kids endure is baffling and what makes the story particularly interesting is how the schools control the kids' lives. 15-hour school days and the kids are even discouraged from having relationships. One line describes an administrator telling two kids to stop holding hands and study. "Romances" are considered a waste of time. The writer did a good job making the story feel real and like the reader was right in the middle of the school observing all of this. That, I believe, is the goal of the story.

"Reading Underground" by Alexis Mainland was a really interesting piece, and I definitely appreciated the wide variety of people that she talked to. It's nice that so many people read on the subways. It's also funny that it's not just older people who are reading; it's young models, teachers, and businessmen. While I was pleased with the number of people she talked to, I also got a little bit lost in it. For her purposes, she had to detail a small part of a person's life for her story. I kind of wish there was a little bit more to hold on to, though. Overall an enjoyable piece.

I also read "Elite Korean Schools, Forging Ivy League Skills." This piece was cool because it really hit upon a lot of stereotypes while it was also a trend and day-in-the-life story. I didn't like the story, though, because it kind of just freaked me out. It made me wonder if those kids have any happiness or identity apart from school grade success.

I know this isn't a day in the life story, but I also read "‘Dogfight’ by Fred Vogelstein" written by Bray. It's a book review piece but it brought to mind something I might do for my social issue piece, which I think is worth writing about here. Could phones be considered a social issue? Could someone do an issue piece on Facebook with some cool angle? I could even do a piece on how social media, like Facebook, affects relationships in the home. I'm not sure if any of this applies as a social issue, but at least it could be a cool trend story in the future! I also read "Milford vote could change the game in casino quest." I think the casino stories that have been cropping up are social issues. According to the article, the casino would change "traffic, water resources, crime, and the effect on property values." And people are mad about it. Even if NH isn't going through casino problems right now, it gives me somewhat of an idea of what to look for when I do think of an issue to write about!

Boston Globe 11/18-11/21

This week I read a story in the Boston Globe called "Walsh, Connolly visit faith groups."  The author, Joshua Miller, described a day in the life of two mayoral candidates a little over a week before election day.  I thought it was impressive that Miller was able to focus on two different people without having one outshine the other.  In addition, Miller was able to focus not only on the similarities between the two candidates, but also their differences.  Even with the dual subject focus, the story was still very clear and informative.  I hope that eventually I'll be a skilled enough observer and reporter to write a successful story like this one.

Day in the life

I thought “together despite all, glimpsing the distant finish” was well written and colorful article. This was the first day in the life article I read, and it gave me a great example to mirror my own article I will write this week. This day in the life article reminded me of a form of writing I learned in my creative nonfiction classes, which is literary journalism. This is exciting for me because I really enjoyed literary journalism, and I can see myself having an enjoyable time writing my article. From this article I learned that a day in the life consists of a lot of reporting, scenes, and overall, the story of someone. Even though the person I will be writing about isn't as important as Marc, the bombing victim, I want to mirror the style this writer used to talk about his life.

The day in the life article called “Elite Korean Schools, Forging Ivy League Skills” was completely different than the marathon bombing one. To compare, it seemed as the marathon bombing one was much more of a true day in the life story. This elite Korean school article focused on a wider subject, being the day in the life of students at this hardcore Korean high school. I didn’t like this one half as much because it wasn’t as smooth in telling to story as the marathon bombing one was. This article seemed more like a regular news story. But wow, the Korean school talked about in this article is crazy to read about. My stomach turns as I read about the long school days, the perfect scores on the SAT’s, and the parents getting mad at their kids if they don’t score a 100. This to me is a little over the top. Please, Korean students of this school and other elite schools, live your life!

Day in the Life Stories

I really enjoyed "Together despite all, glimpsing the distant finish" by Sarah Schweitzer. She was able to follow this man and his family right from the beginning to months later and I think she did a great job with this. It didn't feel unorganized or lacking, and it also wasn't overbearing with details. Schweitzer gave the perfect amount of information and details and really brought the reader into their world. I like how she talked to so many people. She focused a lot on Marc's fiancee which I found to be an interesting perspective because usually the victim gets the most attention. This article shows how it affects the people around the victim as well though. I would have liked to see a little bit more of the son but I understand that he is young and also wasn't around a lot because he was staying with his grandmother. Schweitzer also talked to/observed other family members and family friends which I thought was important because it showed some outside perspective. I liked how Schweitzer showed Marc and the others in a few different environments such as the home and the hospital. It showed Marc's journey. One of my favorite things about this article is that it really showed the human side of these people and didn't shy away from anything. Schweitzer mentioned the fighting and the rude comments between Marc and Jen. She didn't try to make it seem like this happened to perfect people. Everyone has flaws and she didn't cover them up just because they were affected by tragedy. She showed who they really were and let the reader see all the different sides of them. I thought this story was great and very well-written.

Another day in the life story that I read was "Elite Korean schools, forging ivy league skills" by Sam Dillon. This one was much different from the Boston marathon bombing one but I still really liked it. It showed a world that most Americans don't understand from the inside. I think this made it easier to understand these kids' lifestyles and why/how they study so much. It was really interesting to me. I like that although this was a day in the life of a particular school, it was also a day in the life about people as well since it followed the same ones throughout. I really enjoyed this piece.

My favorite day in the life story that I read was "Reading underground" by Alexis Mainland. I love books and reading and I want to live in New York City so badly so this article basically described the life I want to live. What I really liked about this was that it was a much different angle than what one would expect when reading a story about the NYC subway. She looked at it through books and I thought this was very unique and interesting. Not only was she able to see what people were reading though, she was able to take a peek into their lives and see how what they were reading said about who they were and what they were doing in life. I thought this was well done and it was very entertaining to read. Mainland wrote a day in the life of a particular place but she was able to do a peek into the lives of people. That was really cool to me. I also like how she framed the article in sections based on how/what people read and where they were. This grounded it a little more and gave each section a theme instead of it being random. I loved this piece.

Together despite all, glimpsing the distant finish

Tonight, I was looking for a story to model my Day-in-the-life after. I know myself, though, and I know I won't read just any story. It has to be good. It has to be really good.

And "Together despite all" was amazing. It was phenomenal. It was more narrative than news. It had some short sentences to express the situation. The only thing I didn't like was how the author chose to say how they were feeling. And how did the author know what Marc's pain was like at night? Did she watch him sleep or try to explain it based on what she heard from him?

I don't think I can model my story after this one. For one thing, my story will not be quite like this. It will not be as serious. I'm going to be talking about cow poop for crying out loud! (Is that the expression?) But out of all the stories I've read, that's one of the most memorable news stories.

November 14-21 post

               All the day-in-the-life articles that I read were vastly different, depending on their chosen subject. The marathon bombing victim piece versus the elite Korean school story for instance were very dissimilar partly because they have different authors (meaning that the writing style, structure and central conflict will not be the same) and partly because one focused on a school and the other focused on a person. This alone largely determines what kind of article is written and how the authors deal with spinning a story. For my own day-in-the-life piece this week I am writing about a place. I haven’t read a lot of articles that deal with places (typically these kinds are written about people), so I am using the Korean school story as a model. It successfully captured what goes on at Daewon and how extremely hard its students work, but it also provided commentary on the larger issue of the intense pressure kids feel to get accepted at an Ivy League school. In addition the article described the normal schedules that these students have, which brought a human element to a story that is focused on an inanimate object.