03.31 - Public Figure Project Models

We started class today with the set 13 roots and prefixes. Everyone had the first fifteen minutes of class to complete the word list sheet associated with this set. We will work with the practice sheet later this week.

Before everyone began, we reviewed how to use the dictionary to find words that use the roots and prefixes, how to verify their etymology (by looking at what the dictionary lists as their root word and by looking at the definition).

Next, I presented the class with two long form journalism articles on athletes in marginalized sports (figure skating and juggling). We're looking at these articles as models for the public figure project that have the same shape and purpose as our project, but have been done by professional journalists. We focused our work by looking at the way in which Jason Fagone begins his article on the juggler Anthony Gatto:

I feel like I should let you know what you’re in for. This is a long story about a juggler. It gets into some areas that matter in all sports, such as performance and audience and ambition, but there’s absolutely a lot of juggling in the next 6,700 words. I assume you may bail at this point, which is fine; I almost bailed a few times in the writing. The usual strategies of sportswriting depend on the writer and reader sharing a set of passions and references that make it easy to speed along on rivers of stats and myth, but you almost certainly don’t know as much about juggling as you do about football or baseball. We’re probably staring at a frozen lake here.

Both of these articles about sports with a more limited dedicated audience and yet the articles are meant to be read by a much wider audience. The story here is not just for fans of the sport (figure skating or juggling). The story attempts to present these figures and get at a deeper sort of truth which is applicable to a wider audience. The authors are moving beyond the "what" information to explain the "so what" about these performers so that we may appreciate the "now what" of a wider message about who and what they represent through their sport.

Everyone was able to choose whichever article they wanted to read (lengths and difficulty are approximately the same). Everyone was also asked to take a copy of the questions associated with their article.

Handouts:

Set 13 roots and prefixes - word list

Set 13 roots and prefixes - practice sheet

Sonja Henie (figure skater) - article

Sonja Henie (figure skater) - processing questions

Anthony Gatto (juggler) - article

Anthony Gatto (juggler) - processing questions

Homework:

If you did not do so in class, finish reading the article you selected in class as well as responding to questions 1 and 2 of the processing questions.

Complete or revise any assignments scoring below a 3.

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