blog post #3

1. The article I read, written by A. O. Scott, critiqued the movie “The Fighter.”

I decided to peruse this article because of the subject. The movie seemed interesting and I wanted to learn more about it. The headline, though intended to be humorous, did not catch my eye. Since it was found online, I could not see the original layout; however, the pictures used on the website were interesting.

The writing was very illustrative. Scott’s description of actor Christian Bale’s depiction of Dicky, a character in the movie, paints a vivid picture in readers’ minds. Everything Scott discusses is very well written and portrays specific aspects of the movie.

However, Scott dances around the actual plot. He discusses similar movies, the history of “The Fighter,” the setting, the acting. The plot, however, is merely skimmed over. One will get a sense of what the movie is about; however, the idea is a bit fuzzy. Also, in order to completely understand Scott’s references in the article, one must be quite knowledgeable about former movies, both boxing and otherwise. All his comparisons, though designed to assist his description, were confusing for those who have not yet seen the flicks.

After reading the article, I was still left wondering what actually happens in the movie. Though I didn’t want Scott to give it away, I did hope to have a little more information on “The Fighter.”

The article, though well written, was slightly disappointing since only a mere sense of the movie was given.

http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/12/10/movies/10fighter.html?pagewanted=3

2. This winter, I have the gymnastics beat and therefore I had to interview the coach who does not work at Manchester-Essex, the captain, and one other gymnast.

Overall, the interviewing process went very well. The coach, captain, and players were, overall, easy to contact and more than willing to give informative, interesting answers. Since I had prepared the questions beforehand, the interview went smoothly. I was able to ask a few follow-up questions as well, leading to some interesting stories.

One story I elicited was from an interview with one of the gymnasts. Vicky Nicholas told me the team motto was “Don’t die,” therefore causing me to ask her the origin. She described last year’s situation a little bit and led to an interesting story.

For the interview, it was harder to contact the gymnastics coach since he does not work at the school. I had to track him down; however, once I spoke with him, everything else was much easier. The interview process was more difficult because I had to make sure he would be at the gym and it would be a convenient time for both of us. Since I do track and he coaches, a small window of time is available that works for both of us.

The writing of this article would have been far easier had I contacted both the coach and captain sooner. Since I knew both of them, I figured it would be simple to find a convenient time to talk with them. I left the interview to the last minute and ran into a time crunch. I was able to talk with both of them, but in the future I should interview the people I need to as soon as I can.

blog post #2

1. The article I read was a review of the new Harry Potter movie. It intrigued me not because I am a Potter fanatic, but instead because of how popular Harry Potter is. I enjoy the series, but I’m not obsessed. I was interested to see what the critic thought of the newest installment – what they thought of the split of the movies. I was curious to see if it would be good or not. Harry Potter affects almost everyone I know – whether a fan or not, everyone knows when it’s coming out and practically everyone goes to see it. I was curious to see what peoples’ opinions might be coming out of the movie theater. The writing was very good, with many descriptive adjectives that really bring the movie to life. His description of Ralph Fiennes’ (Voldemort) acting was very intriguing, making me want to see the movie. It was well done with no errors that I noticed. Morris’ description was very impressive. He didn’t just descriptive words, but descriptive sentences and paragraphs as well, painting a picture of the movie and making it feel as though I was watching it right along with him.

2. This month, I wrote an opinion piece about Taylor Swift’s new album. Overall, I think it went pretty well. I loved listening to her music over and over, and I think that listening to each song multiple times helped me elicit different feelings or subtleties one may not notice upon first hearing it. However, since I did not have a copy of the CD itself (I got it on iTunes), I did not have the CD inside cover, which has all the lyrics, a special note, and clues to what each song really means to her. Once I found this out, the whole piece was transformed, since so much new information was added. The meanings of the songs and underlying tones I otherwise would not have noticed were suddenly clear, and I had to go back and practically rewrite the piece. It would have been better to find all this information out before beginning to write the piece and assume that I could understand what they were about. Some of the songs I was correct about, but others I was very wrong. Next time I write an album review, I will make sure to read professional writers’ opinion pieces before writing mine, since, typically, they know far more inside information than the general public.

october

1. The article I selected, “Seamless Transition,” by Jason Brisbois caught my eye, not only because the paper was printed on pink paper, but also because it had two pictures, one big and one small, and a headline in all capitals and in a different font than the other headlines. The two pictures are both action shots and are different sizes and shapes. The topic also interests me, regarding to Manchester-Essex field hockey. I love field hockey, so it directly affects me, especially since I am a part of the team of which Brisbois was writing. It discusses the teams’ continued success despite having a different coach. The lead also really drew me in, not directly stating what the article was to discuss and using sentence fragments and a rhetorical question. The article has the flow of an editorial, though it is entirely factual. It quotes the coach many times. However, there are a few spelling errors and, for quotes such as, “solid play,” “seamless transition,” and “confidence isn’t much of an issue” have no attribution. Though assumptions can be made that coach Andrea Slaven made these comments, it is not confirmed. Also, only one source was interviewed for the article.

2. One of my articles this issue discussed the two new history courses in the curriculum this year. Interviews were easy to get, since both classes had the same teacher and many of my peers take one of them. They went well and I got lots of good information from the people I spoke to. However, it was more difficult because the classes were so similar, the only difference being the level of the course. My interview with Mr. Jewett was tough because he felt as though he was repeating the same information when I asked him about the two different classes, making it difficult to quote or attribute certain facts at times during the writing process. Despite these difficulties, the rest went quite smoothly, including getting the rest of the information needed and writing and editing the article. I most likely could have come up with more interesting questions to ask Mr. Jewett and tried to learn and then write about the nuances that differentiate the two classes. The article, I feel, would have been more successful had I gotten longer interviews from the teacher, and interviewed more students and asked them a greater number of questions.