- Telling Stories about Place

Catalog description

Place is fundamental to storytelling, and therefore to good reporting. Understanding where a story takes place means knowing which descriptive details to put in and leave out. Place is reflected in and shapes the people we write about. Good reporters need to understand that someone from a small rural village is going to have a different worldview that someone from a city, and they need to understand why, and how it affects their motivations and shapes the institutions that govern their lives. Understanding and respecting the places where we report from helps us produce authentic and compelling stories with depth and insight. This course will explore "places" that are easily accessible to students and faculty--Rural America, Appalachia, the City, the Suburbs, Rust Belt America--for example.