I'll hand back the Woolf essays on Monday (1/30), but if you want a stronger sense of how the AP looks at the essays check out their site. The page has a scoring guide for all three questions (the Woolf prompt is Question 2 from 2002), as well as student samples at various score points. 

Saw this in the Times magazine this morning (actually, initially over Howard Kurtz's Twitter feed, to be specific) and thought you might be interested. It's from a piece about Marty Peretz titled: "Martin Peretz is not sorry. About anything." Kind of incredible. 


 [Peretz] derives great pleasure from assisting others with self-inflicted wounds. In 1998, a young New Republic reporter named Stephen Glass was found to have fabricated at least two dozen articles for the magazine. It was the greatest scandal in the magazine’s history and marked a decade of waning influence and mounting financial losses.

Glass eventually went to law school. Later, he moved to Los Angeles, and applied to the California bar, but his application was denied because of his previous ethical lapses. He requested an appeal hearing. Charles Lane, The New Republic’s editor during part of Glass’s tenure, was subpoenaed and asked to offer testimony. In April, he made the trip to Los Angeles for the hearing and ran into a familiar face. Lane did a double take.

“Marty, what are you doing here?”

Peretz smiled.

“I’m testifying for Steve.”

Peretz testified that Glass’s accusers were hypocrites and that he would rehire the fabulist if given the chance. (The results of the hearing are sealed, but Glass’s name does not appear on California’s list of licensed lawyers.) I asked Peretz why he chose to speak on behalf of Glass. “It was the right thing to do,” he said. “Who are they to sit in judgment?”


This is Kurtz's Tweet: Having covered Stephen Glass' TNR fraud, stunned to read Marty Peretz testified for him getting a law license.

This site goes into a bit more depth than I did in class today, and may make a nice review.

We didn't get much time to spend with the content of the Amy Chua edit today, but here's a link to her the WSJ column (a book excerpt, I think) that started this whole brouhaha (even if you don't read the piece, say "brouhaha" three times fast; it's fun). 

Can't say I've spent a lot of time with this video, but it looks promising; see what you think: 
 

What did you learn about narrative/literary journalism? How does it apply to your profile? 

What questions do you walk away with? And why does weebly keep deleting my blog post? 

How does the opening paragraph establish a theme and a tone for the piece? What does she do throughout the piece to maintain the tone and develop the theme? Same deal as "Tiffany" -- refer to at least one other post, unless you're the first person. 

Comments on your trend stories should be up online for everyone later today; you can check your grades on Gradebookwizard or wait for class Tuesday to get the rubric.

Here's the prompt to respond to for "Tiffany": What does the last paragraph, the image of Cinderella's castle tell us about the angle of the story? And how does Orlean lay the groundwork for that image throughout the piece?

Respond as a comment to this message, and refer to at least one other person's comment in your response (unless you're the first person, in which case you are relieved of this particular responsibility)/