Midterm ready

Your midterm is ready to go. You can take it any time between now and midnight Friday. There are 50 questions and you'll have 90 minutes to complete the exam once you begin.

When you get to the class page just click on quizzes. You'll find it there. Good luck.

Bullet in the Brain

Here's a link to that short, short story, by Tobias Wolff I talked about today. The link takes you to a Seattle Post-Intelligencer blog post. Don't read the blog post, just click on the "Bullet in the Brain" link in the first sentence of the blog. That takes you to a PDF of the story.

It's short, only four pages. But it is very good. Sorry, there are a couple typos in the PDF file. You'll need to buy the book and load it onto your Kindle if you want a mistake-free version.

This has nothing to do with news writing. But I promise you if you can ever craft a paragraph as brilliant and as perfect as the one that ends this story, you will go far as a writer.

Cheers,
Rob

Current events

You can take it to the bank that these two stories will be on Friday's quiz.

Miners rescued

Judge halts "Don't ask, don't tell"

Papers in Ed Services in Blake Hall

Edited papers will be available in education services in Blake Hall on Monday. Assuming things go as planned, I'll drop them off in the morning. If things don't go as planned I'll bring them by at lunch time. See you all on Wednesday.

BTW, those second drafts you showed me are much improved and coming together. Nice work!

Here's a link to one of my favorite poems. It's kind of funny in a morbid sort of way.

No current events quiz

Unless I get some angry feedback, we'll skip the current events quiz in the morning.

For those of you who missed class on Wednesday, we discussed submitting second drafts in class Friday so I can look them over this weekend. I'm going to miss class on Monday due to a work conflict at the high school, but I will figure out a way for you to get your story back on Monday so you can review my notes.

Have no fear

I know I warned all of you that there would be a lot of blood on the page when you turned in your first stories. Still, as a writer I know that all the warnings in the world don't mean squat when your work is shredded (it has happened to me more times that I care to remember). Just keep in mind that you are all learning a new, and somewhat unique writing style. You cannot be expected to just get it right out of the gate. It takes some time and perseverance to learn how to write a news story. What I can assure all of you is that if you stick with it, you will succeed in this class. I will work with you until you get it.

Failure is not an option.

Wednesday I'll be available in the Eagle's Nest for about an hour after class to talk with you about your stories. If that time doesn't work for you let me know and we'll make an appointment. I can usually get away from my job at Glacier High to meet during the day.

In the meantime if you haven't seen this story about FVCC enrollment in the Daily Inter Lake, take a look, especially you Ally.