Course Descriptions

Term:  

Spring Quarter

Dept Course No and Title Instructor
LIT JRN (S25)20  INTR LIT JOURNALISMPIERSON, P.
Reading of selected texts to explore the ways in which literary journalism and related nonfiction modes formulate experience. Students write several short papers and one final project. The required prerequisite for either section of LJ 20 is satisfactory completion of the lower-division writing requirement.
LIT JRN (S25)21  REPORTING LIT JOURNDEPAUL, A.
To write convincingly and tell powerful stories that resonate, writers need to be meticulous, thorough reporters. LJ21 teaches students how to report their literary journalism articles accurately and thoroughly, focusing on the three basic means of gathering information for a story: interviewing, observing and reading. Early in the quarter, students will select a topic, or beat, as it is known in news parlance, from which they will develop contacts and story leads. Students will cover an event, conduct an interview and generate articles related to their beats, also learning ways to use Internet resources and databases to find facts and information and examining investigative and legal documents. The required prerequisite for either section of LJ 21 is satisfactory completion of the lower-division writing requirement.
LIT JRN (S25)100  ADVANCED REPORTINGDEPAUL, A.
Advanced Reporting asks students to complete a series of writing and multimedia assignments that require proficiency in varied reporting strategies such as interview, observation and research. Assignments will include profile, photo story, social problem/community reporting, and a final group digital project on a subject of our choosing. Guest speakers will offer insight into professional paths.
LIT JRN (S25)101BW  NARRATIVE WRITINGSIEGEL, B.
Narrative writing provides the foundation for much of what we call literary journalism. Writers in this field want to tell stories. They want to bring to nonfiction the sense of inner life usually found only in novels. How to write nonfiction prose that adopts the aims and techniques of the finest fiction? How to tell tales that read as if they were nonfiction short stories? These will be the central questions students in this class face. Students will look to the masters for models—nonfiction writers such as Tom French, John McPhee, and Michael Paterniti. Students will also do a good deal of their own narrative writing. This course is an advanced writing workshop: Students will regularly share their work with classmates in a constructive process of peer-review, then revise based on that feedback. By the end of the quarter, students will have produced a character sketch and a major example of narrative writing.  
LIT JRN (S25)101BW  NARRATIVES OFF THE NEWSHAYASAKI, E.
A man jumps from a Manhattan skyscraper and nosedives to his death, a fire ravages a college dorm in the middle of the night, a little girl is murdered by an internet predator, a band of terrorists take an elementary school full of children hostage. For each event, headlines around the world captured the breaking news. But the stories were not over. Weeks after the stories broke, the most compelling details had yet to be reported. Some of the best literary journalists find gripping stories by going back to the scene and interviewing sources weeks, months or even years after the news broke. In this class we will learn to search newspapers and blogs for story ideas that the daily media may have missed and we will learn to go back after a story has become ?old news,? after the daily reporters have left. We will study how literary journalists reconstruct events after they have occurred, and we will read writers like Tom Junod, Robin Gaby Fisher and other reporters who found unique angles on widely reported events.We will also learn to pay attention to news nuggets that are often ignored or quickly dismissed. Students will learn to find story ideas in news briefs, blurbs or items that received only a passing mention on the evening news, keeping in mind that these can often lead to the most riveting profiles and narratives. In this class, students will be expected to work on their narrative writing skills and interviewing techniques, and they will be required to find, pitch, report, and write their own stories off the news.
LIT JRN (S25)101BW  ART OF THE PROFILECORWIN, M.
In this class we will study the art of the profile and focus on every element of profile writing. We will begin by focusing on story selection and delve into how to pick a subject who readers will care about. Then we will address interviewing and hone in on how to prepare, how to select questions, how to obtain great quotes, and how to transform an interview into a conversation. Story structure will be a key element of this class and we will break down each element of a well-crafted profile. Finally, we’ll discuss how to elevate a profile in order to portray not just the person, but important political and social issues. Several accomplished literary journalists will visit the class and discuss their approach to profile writing. The foundation of this class is weekly one-on-one editing sessions so students can have the experience of shaping story ideas and honing their pieces with an editor. Students will have the opportunity to write several profiles of varying lengths.
LIT JRN (S25)103  JOURNALISM ON THE EDGECORWIN, M.
From the slums of Mumbai, to the gang neighborhoods of Watts; from the classrooms of South Central Los Angeles and the remote villages of the Amazon, to the war-torn streets of Iraq, journalists seek out places most people avoid, and they return to tell stories that shed light on important issues and serious social problems. The books we read follow the paths of these journalists who enter dangerous and unfamiliar areas, report at their peril and return to illuminate misunderstood parts of the world. As we shadow the writers on these journeys, we discuss how they were able to obtain access into these worlds, gain the trust of the residents, transcend stereotypes, and tell stories that were not simply dry recitations of facts, problems and solutions, but compelling narratives. We discuss poverty, discrimination, and inequality in this class. We also study the art of storytelling, including how to engage the reader, how to create a page-turning story arc, how to make characters come alive. We break down the books in order to understand the writers' styles and their approaches. This class will be helpful for those who are interested in becoming writers, as well as students who simply love good writing and good storytelling. Several of the writers we read will visit the class and discuss the dangers they faced, the risks they encountered and their research methods and writing techniques.
LIT JRN (S25)103  HISTORIC NARRATIVESHAYASAKI, E.
Please visit this page again soon for an updated course description.
LIT JRN (S25)199  INDEPENDENT STUDYSTAFF
No detailed description available.
LIT JRN (S25)199  INDEPENDENT STUDYSTAFF
No detailed description available.
LIT JRN (S25)199  INDEPENDENT STUDYSTAFF
No detailed description available.
LIT JRN (S25)199  INDEPENDENT STUDYSTAFF
No detailed description available.
LIT JRN (S25)199  INDEPENDENT STUDYSTAFF
No detailed description available.
LIT JRN (S25)199  INDEPENDENT STUDYSTAFF
No detailed description available.