Pop Survey Says...

On Thursday I asked the class for some feedback on what we'd covered so far, what else you'd like to have covered, and whether you find reading and analyzing articles in class helpful. Here are the results (out of 9 students present):

Out of the items on the “Building Blocks of Stories” handout (please grab it if you missed class—I've uploaded it to the course page FILES section), there are votes to review:

Nut graphs (1)

emotional connection (1)

Quotes/interviewing (1)

leads & conclusions (1)

anecdotes (1)

scenes (1)

research/facts (2)

There's interest in the business of freelance journalism and using social media to increase readership of your blogs. We are going to spend next week on the business side and work on pitch letters. And this week we are going to get Twitterized. And I think we'll also spend some class time on research. (As for the rest, maybe the students who were absent can break the tie)

Eight out of nine of you enjoy reading features in class and would like to read more in the remaining class time. Several of you said that it allows you to read stories you wouldn't read otherwise, and to learn from the writing techniques. Others said you've enjoyed being introduced to a wide variety of web sites. One criticism was that it's too easy to get off topic. Thus, we will be reading a couple more articles together, but we'll try not to follow any tangents too far.

There's also some interest in having more “conference” time with me regarding your blogs. I am willing to meet with students before or after class so please e-mail me for an appointment if you'd like some additional feedback.

p.s. We also figured out that it IS possible for you to comment on the blogs, but for some reason you have to log out and log back in each time. So if those of you who were absent would like to weigh in publicly, go ahead an comment below. If not, you may write your feedback down and hand it in to me like the others did.

THANK YOU for filling out the "survey"!