The first learning log of the year and I am ready to go. I hope by putting my blog in sections will help me concentrate better and not leave anything I want to mention behind. So far, I really enjoy the class because I never had the chance to really explore and research a journalist. Which I think is unfortunate, considering I am a journalism student. Russ chose a dandy of a writer to read and I appreciate the things that I've learned thus far with John McPhee.
The Introduction
This is my third class with Russ so I was well aware of what to expect in a course with him as my professor. I didn't really learn anything new with the class introduction. A few of the forums had changed but they will become easier as we go along.
However, one of the responses struck my learning chord in my brain to really sit down and think about it. And that is the thought of time in comparison to what we learn. The email from a classmate (I missplaced the actual email and cannot remember whose it was, if it was yours please comment below) had said that she was worried about her grades in the course. She didn't understand why someone who spent hours of work would receive the same check mark as someone who only took 2 minutes to scribble something down. I thought about this and I began to agree with her. It made perfect sense. However, over the courses I had with Russ I remembered something: it's not what you type on a piece of computer paper, but what you've learned along the way and how you got there. Russ is fair, in my opinion, in how he grades. He senses what people have learned from his class and what some should have learned but decided to put it aside or not think about it much if at all. I've learned that you can't enjoy life to the fullest by skimming by and hanging by a thread- you must absorb all that you can in order to explore the richness of a story or a movie or anything for that matter. It will be difficult for those who only take 2 minutes to jot something down without much thought to write a decent learning reflection, because well, did they learn anything at all? Did they allow anything to sink in?
I also want to post up another response I did for the intro about lectures. I personally hate lectures, despise them. But then again, I don't really like group work either so I need a happy medium. However, the reason to why I don't like lectures is that I find it hard to retain the information. Months after listening to a lecture and writing down notes, I gaurantee you I will not remember half of it. But what I had learned in both Aquinas and Art of Fact (both taught by Russ) I remember quite a bit of it because I discussed what I had LEARNED, what I THOUGHT was important, and why I DECIDED to talk about it. I took learning into my own hands- not what I was subject to absorb and then regeritate onto an exam months after.
John McPhee ... so far ...
The man is a bloody genius, is what I've learned. I hope to take what I've learned from his writing style and apply it to my own articles and journalism classes. Oooops, already did! My anecdotal leads have become stronger after reading literary journalism in the past two years because I know how important it is to grab your reader's attention. If they don't continue reading past your lead, well, what's the point of writing the story to begin with?
McPhee's attention to detail and description is quite amazing. I've learned to write about the big picture but to find the insignificant characteristics of a person or thing and make them special. For example, in McPhee's "In Virgin Forest" he describes his interviewee's personality and his outer appearance. Most journalistic venues don't include these details, such as Stiles mutton chops and jacket but McPhee knew how important it was to describe a simple man who had amazing intelligence of the forest.
I also LOVE McPhee's sense of humour. I've learned, after reading "In Virgin Forest", to read between the lines and to find definitions to words or names I don't understand. I was impressed to learn that a lot of my classmates find words they don't understand in the dictionary because I don't even do that! But when I began to read "Plains II", I quickly learned how important it was to keep track of words or you would quickly become lost. That is exactly what happened and why I didn't enjoy reading "Plains II". There were too many words I didn't know the meaning of, most of them were descriptive words used by cowboys so I had to remember McPhee's definitions for them and I just lost track of what the main story line was. I was too focused on remembering what a cowboy's term for a blanket was!
But back to McPhee's sense of humour. I applied what I had learned about reading between the lines and to read for details while I was reading McPhee's "Whiff". I have fallen in love. The article may only be 1,500 words or so but his talent to write tight but colourful is amazing. From just this one article (couldn't be more than 3,000 words) I learned something about McPhee's New Yorker editor's personality, the editor's journalistic values and beliefs, McPhee's story ideas and what I loved to write about, how McPhee doesn't like story restrictions, and McPhee's political beliefs (which ends to a funny ending).
