Final Piece Responses, Weeks 9 & 10

Andrea: You've found a truly fascinating subject for your second profile. On one hand, I want to hear nothing but details about Lisa's life for the full thousand words, but on the other hand we all need a focus of some sort. You start down the path of talking about Mira's skepticism toward higher education but I feel you wander some in the middle of the piece in order to give details about Lisa without tying it in tightly enough with Mira. You return to the subject of Mira's education at the end, but by then the piece is over. If only it could be twice as long! Failing that, if you want to refine the focus on the irony of Lisa's education and the specter of Mira's, I would start from the penultimate paragraph (fantastic quote, don't lose it no matter what) and write from there.

Marina: Your piece did a good job of convincing me that it was worthwhile. Never once did I think to myself "why are we talking about the arts and feminism again?" so you have won that "uphill battle" to represent these artistic women in a supportive way. You've also expertly woven a current event--The Tempest production--into the fabric of the story to keep the focus grounded. One thing I might want to see included is a bit of a statistical breakdown of women:men at K and across the country, for comparative purposes. You also mention two departments, music and theatre, as heavily female. I'd like to hear why (especially from those involved), and if it's a K thing or a countrywide trend.

Simona: Being a migrant worker sounds like living in the Wild West and you did well painting that life in a sympathetic light, even without tracking down and talking to any migrant workers (which I could imagine would be difficult to do. Good thing you had translators with you!) I like the focus being on these migrant rights activists, and they stand tall in your piece, doing good against all odds like the sheriff in a western. The scenes that really captured by interest were the ones in which you were actually there, like pulling up to the abandoned migrant camp and then going into detail about the risks involved (and skillfully returning to it later to mention that abandoned camps sometimes get turned into meth labs). If you can do this more and springboard off of your experiences travelling with these activists into stories and details about their job and the life of migrants, your piece will be even stronger.

Claire: You touch on several topics related to the smoking ban that are all interesting on their own: how effective is it, really? What's the effect on businesses? What's the effect on smokers and non-smokers (and also that strange hybrid species that you mentioned, those that "don't smoke" but are happy to bum cigarettes anyway)? I think you should consider focusing more singularly on one of these topics, since each seems to prove to have meat on its bones and you can really dig in and sock it to--well, somebody. But I don't want to push you away from making a more general statement on smoking in Kalamazoo if that's what you want to do; just while reading I kept going "oh I want to hear more about that, and that, and that too!" So maybe pick something while acknowledging the interconnectedness of it all.

Anna: Tons of detail and life packed in a tight space here, just like the trades center itself. You mentioned when you brought up the idea for this piece in class that the center has had problems with the soup kitchen or whatever it is adjacent to the building. If you're looking for a conflict to introduce into your piece you may want to pursue that further, but as it stands I'm not sure that the piece strictly needs an overt conflict to drive it. In lieu of that I can sense an implicit tension in the piece, its varied history chief among them alongside the mild unreality of artists having a place to gather and work in close proximity, as in "what happens if we wake up from the dream of art that is the trades center?"

Jessica: Your process writing is concerned that this article is too much like a news feature and I am given to agree. You've got some fascinating details about Streeter--I like especially how he is one of those people who seems to know somebody everywhere--but you've got to make me get into him as a person. Swap out some of the statistics for stories or bury the numbers inside of something that keeps me interested, and those kids that got into the Ivy Leagues? I don't care about them because the piece anonymizes them. I'd say either add some character to the success stories, or leave them out, or let Streeter own those successes as his own in the narrative.

(Joel and Myles forthcoming after class)