AEJMC Literary Journalism Presentation 2016

Establishing Long-Form Journalism

in the Curriculum

Mitzi Lewis, Midwestern State University John Hanc, New York Institute of Technology Robin Reid, Midwestern State University

“Innovate | Integrate | Engage”

Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication 2016 Conference Minneapolis, MN

Long-Form Journalism and the Conceptual Conundrum August 2016 Panel

Purpose of survey

To better understand how educators are incorporating long-form journalism into their classes

Previous surveys

•  how we get students to want to read

•  what kind of reading assignments are successful

•  courses in which we teach literary journalism

•  how we teach new forms of multi-platform literary journalism

•  challenges in teaching literary journalism

Survey contributors

Robin ReidMidwestern State Univ.

Mitzi LewisMidwestern State Univ.

John HancNew York Institute of Technology

John CapouyaUniversity of Tampa

Survey respondents N=120 n=86

Organization Affiliation

0

20

40

60

IALJS AEJMC Magazine Division

AEJMC Small Programs

Interest Group

Other

AEJMC Cultural and Critical Studies

AEJMC Entertainment Studies

AEJMC History

AEJMC Minorities and Communication

AEJMC Newspaper & Online News

AEJMC Public Relations

AEJMC Religion and Media

AEJMC Scholastic Journalism

American Conference for Irish Studies

American Journal Experts

American Journalism Historians Association

American Society of Business Press Editors

American Studies Association

Associated Collegiate Press

Association of Christian Collegiate Media

Australian Association of Writing Programs

College Media Advisers

Connectiv (formerly ABM, the B2B business organization)

Cultural Studies Association

Evangelical Press Association

International Communication Association Journalism Studies

National Association of Writers in Education

Online News Association

Society for the History of Authorship

Society of Professional Journalists

Society of Publications in Asia

The Ernie Bushmiller Literary Society. (Founding president. This society never met and disbanded when I graduated from college.)

Twenty countries represented

•  Portugal

•  Romania

•  South Africa

•  Spain

•  Switzerland

•  The Bahamas

•  The Netherlands

•  United Arab Emirates

•  United Kingdom

•  United States

•  Australia

•  Brazil

•  Bulgaria

•  Canada

•  Chile

•  Denmark

•  Italy

•  New Zealand

•  Norway

•  Poland

Age in years

25-34 4%

35-44 15%

45-54 21% 55-64

44%

65+ 16%

Years teaching

0-4 2%

5-9 13%

10-14 27%

15-19 16%

20 or more 42%

Student level taught

Both 53%

Graduate 7%

Under-graduate

Do you have a professional background in journalism?

No 17%

Yes 83%

In what department do you teach literary journalism?

TOP 8 MENTIONS

Journalism 19 Mass Communication 8

English 6 Communication 3 Creative Writing 3

Journalism and Media Studies 3 Communication and Media Studies 2

Journalism and Communication 2

Do the classes you teach that incorporate literary journalism primarily involve:

The practice of literary journalism

24%

The study of literary journalism

18%

Both 58%

Are the courses you teach (study or practice), wholly devoted to literary journalism or just

partially devoted to literary journalism?

Wholly 30%

Partially 51%

Both 19%

How would you classify the depth to which you cover literary journalism in this course/

those courses? Please select all that apply.

0 10 20 30 40 50

Literary journalism is the focus of the course.

Literary journalism is its own unit among other units in the

course.

Literary journalism is covered as apart of a unit among other

units in this course.

# of responses

Do you assign book-length readings?

Yes, 55%

No, 45%

If you assign book-length readings, do you prefer for your students to read

the paper copy or a digital copy?

Paper copy 39%

Digital copy 4%

I don't have a

preference 57%

0 10 20 30 40

Atavist

Byliner

Longform

Longreads

The Big Roundtable

Vox Magazine

Don't assign web readings

# responses Do you assign readings from any of the following literary journalism resources on the web?

New Yorker Pulitzer list The Atlantic Monthly Medium/Matter New York Times website from original publication Aeon Anfibia (revistaanfibia.com) ASME list Concrete Playground East of the Web Esquire Junkee Lifted Brow

mainly sources in Spanish Narratively New York Review of Books Nieman Narrative Nuevos Chronistas de Indias (nuevoscronistasdeindias.fnpi.org) Periodismo Narrative En Latinoamérica (cronicasperiodisticas.wordpress.com) Polk list Sports Illustrated online archives The Monthly Vanity Fair Walkleys

Other resources

Do you assign readings from any of the following literary journalism resources on the web?

“I encourage students to read widely and discover new websites.”

“magazine articles that won awards at the Canadian Western Magazine Awards and that are part of my curriculum project: themagazineschool.ca”


“As we are a university based in Africa it is important that the majority of our sources and reading materials in courses here are from this continent and not from the US which has a particular type of long form journalism specific to its context. It is important for students here to know their own context, their own continent and to know African authors. I myself read widely from these online sources but choose to use them only sometimes.”


“I send students a link to a feature, especially a long newspaper feature that employs elements of LJ, in advance of a guest writer coming in to talk about her or his work. Usually the focus is on one specific piece of work when a guest does a turn for an hour or 75 minutes. I invite about a half dozen writers per term. Those readings are in addition to the weekly readings I've assigned at the beginning of term.”

If you assign a literary journalism piece that also has a corresponding video (e.g., Truman Capote's In Cold Blood), do you have your students read the book, watch the video, both, or neither?

Read the book 36%

Watch the video

7%

Both 51%

Neither 6%

If you assign a literary journalism piece that also has a corresponding video, do you have your students read the book, watch the video, both, or neither?

“I am using literary journalism as the theme for my first-year writing (composition) course. Students read Hiroshima as well as excerpts from The Art of Fact. However, they also watched Into the Wild, which was adapted from the book by Jon Krakauer. We will also be watching The Insider later in the semester.”


“I often use videos in class both those associated with literary journalism works and independently to talk about the construction of rhythms, metaphors and symbols—I often find that talking about visual works enables students to translate these elements to writing.”


“This is bad practice. LitJourn—non-fiction narrative—is so complex, students need every minute of class time to analyze texts, present texts, explicated structure, attempt exercises in elements of narrative, such as the creation of persona. Film/Video/Stills are passive and do not require the labor of learning that text does.”


“I rarely show video. I did show The End of the Tour last fall because I thought it illuminated the writer-subject relation (and we had just finished reading The Journalist and the Murderer). And I've shown the ‘Just Let Go’ scene from Fight Club as a way to demonstrate my emphasis on breaking away from straight news reporting. But that's about it lately.”

Adaptation Joe Gould's Secret Let Us Now Praise Famous Men Rosa Lee's Story Shattered Glass Silent Spring Spotlight The Art of Fact excerpts The End of the Tour The Insider The Journalist and the Murderer

Blackhawk Down Capote

Dr. Don: The Life of a Small-Town Druggist Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas Fight Club "Just Let Go" scene Frank Sinatra Has a Cold Hiroshima How the Other Half Lives In Cold Blood Into the Wild

Specific books and videos

James Baldwin

Robert Coles

Anne Fadiman

Malcolm Gladwell

Mark Kramer

Adriane Nicole LeBlanc

Susan Orlean

Gay Talese

John Edgar Wideman

Specific authors mentioned independent of their work

Are you incorporating social media into any of your long-form journalism assignments?

Yes 31%

No 69%

A little help from NVivo

Twitter

•  Share cool examples/content and experiences students are having in reporting/immersion

•  “Sometimes if I find an interesting topic, by way of the reference of Twitter or other social media, I will refer to it”

•  Sourcing stories, sometimes incorporate into narrative •  Spur for writing exercises •  Metaphor/headline/nut graf practice •  A way to show brevity •  Short narrative writing •  Publishing

Facebook

•  Share content •  “Show how stories and community content

influence each other, move in either direction, etc.”

•  Class Facebook group •  Sourcing stories, sometimes incorporate into

narrative •  Metaphor/headline/nut graf practice •  Short narrative writing •  Publishing

Instagram

•  Sourcing stories, sometimes incorporate into narrative

•  Publishing

Other platforms mentioned

•  Blog •  “to show how stories and community content

influence each other, move in either direction, etc.” •  to publish

•  LinkedIn—“to show how stories and community content influence each other, move in either direction, etc.”

•  Medium—to publish •  Vine •  WordPress—for class web/blog site •  YouTube

Are you incorporating social media into any of your long-form journalism assignments?

“No but I have thought of this and think that it is a really good idea. Great experiments by people like Teju Cole on Twitter doing multimedia "long form" projects through series tweets.”

Do you assign any substantial writing assignments?

Yes 85%

No 15%

If yes, how many pages of writing in total do you require throughout

the entire class/semester?

Range

Lower: 1 page Upper: 240 pages

“If you are willing, please share your most successful reading and/or writing assignments.

If you would like credit, please include your name so the assignment can be properly attributed to you.”

Please see handout for 35 responses

Thank you again to everyone who participated!

Please feel free to share what we learned from you with others so that

they may benefit too.