Don’t Be Afraid

Halloween Story Assignment

Radford doesn’t have the biggest Halloween celebration in the country, but we can fix that…. By taking the Internet time machine to be spectators at the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade in New York City.

http://video.yahoo.com/watch/1399051/4822547

http://www.rocketboom.com/rb_08_oct_31/ (duplicate of the one above, in case you have Internet trouble)

http://www.rocketboom.com/rb_08_oct_31/comments/

http://www.rocketboom.com/rb_08_nov_03/

BONUS: For this year, Rocketboom interviewed a costume prize winner, so you can use any of her interview as a paragraph or two of your story, but don't make her the whole story -- that should be your own observations, descriptions and interview.

http://www.rocketboom.com/the-claw/

Supplements: Folder of still images captured from video and a Google map to show the location of the parade. In-class role-playing interviews.

1. For purposes of your story, both videos are from “last night’s” parade, this year, and you are writing the story for the morning-after newspaper.

2. You can use any of the comments (the third link) or the interview at the start of the last video as though they are comments from people YOU talked to.

3. Write the story as a third person news report. (Not a “The first thing I saw was…” first-person experience account, or an opinion piece (editorial, column, sermon) saying what you thought of the people you saw.)

4. “Show, don’t tell.” That is, don’t tell people a costume was funny or disgusting, try to describe it so that your reader’s reaction is “Wow, that’s funny” or “Oh, that’s disgusting.”

5. Optional, but encouraged: To get real reporting experience and find better quotes than you collected in class, INTERVIEW anyone you see in costume in Radford (or elsewhere) this weekend, and pretend you met them on the street and they were part of the same New York parade. They can still be Radford students who just happened to be in New York. Get each quoted person’s name or his or her reason for not wanting their name in the story. DO NOT make anything up. Take careful notes and get good direct quotes, especially full sentences – even if you have to ask someone to speak slowly so that you can quote them accurately. (“Sorry, I’m not used to taking notes while standing up and juggling a glass of lemonade. Could you repeat that?”)

6. Deadline: Start of class Tuesday. (Bring it to put in the whale.)

7. Length: About two double-spaced pages. No more than three.

8. Assume you are writing for general-readership news Web site like the New River Voice, not a specialized publication.

9. Have fun!