ASSIGNMENT: FEATURE STORY

A feature article is a news story that does more than report the facts. Features appeal to a wide audience by mixing accurate, factual information with human interest stories and is one of the few genres characterized by equally appealing to ethos, logos, and pathos. While the primary purpose of a feature is to inform, a good feature will also entertain your audience.

News features are increasingly found in publications, as they are more engaging for readers than hard news. To write a news feature, you must focus on a specific topic that can be thoroughly covered within a given word count. The topic must also be important and include firsthand accounts of real people (pathos), opinions from experts (ethos), and facts (logos) to establish the truth and gravity of the issue. Though their topics usually have a local focus, news features attempt to put everything together and show that there’s a larger context for the issue.

By now, we’ve looked at some historical and contemporary activism associated with CCNY. More than 50 years ago, CCNY students demanded more students of color be admitted to the school. In pursuit of that demand, more than 200 Black and Puerto Rican students closed the South Campus for two weeks. There have been large-scale student protests over tuition hikes, historical anti-war, and free speech movements.

But, remember, activism isn’t always reported or archived. There are thousands of CCNY student activists working hard on voting rights, racial, educational, and gender equality and inclusion, environmental issues, ecological issues, food insecurity, cybersecurity, and privacy….the list goes on and on. These students are organizing in clubs, identifying and trying to solve problems!

The purpose of this assignment is:

• to inform (and entertain) an audience by composing a news feature on a specific example of student activism at CCNY,
• to practice with CCNY databases doing research, and
• to practice academic writing skills–APA citation and annotation

Procedure:

Step one: Research and writing are always more enjoyable if the topic is something you’re actively interested in. We’ll be doing some group work and practicing some writing strategies (TOPIC FINDER) in order to identify a topic that interests you AND fulfills the assignment criteria: to inform (and entertain) an audience by composing a news feature on a specific example of student activism at CCNY.

Next: Start researching your topic. You should always make sure you understand the assignment requirements when it comes to sources. Assignments almost always designate a range of required sources. We’ll be talking about what an “academic source” is and practicing searching the CCNY library databases using filters. We’ll look at some (possibly) helpful tools like JSTOR Labs Text Analyzer.

Since there is a requirement for at least one “primary” source, we’ll likely have to develop an individual research tool to use in the data collection process. You might need to develop a set of interviews (OWL on interview) or survey questions (OWL on surveying). If you decide on an observation, you’ll need to figure out what to observe and how you’re going to record your observations (OWL on observing).

While you’re researching, remember those writing strategies we practiced in the first weeks of class (rhetorical analysis, annotation, reverse outline, and summary), you’ll make your life a lot easier if you’re reading actively throughout the research process. There will be an annotated bibliography due with the final draft of the project. This should be composed during the research process rather than after it. It’s much more effective and efficient to be composing the annotations as you interact with the sources rather than all at the end. 

After that, we’ll compose a fully formatted APA outline. Outlines are perhaps the best strategy available for constructing and maintaining organizational structure in writing. Highly organized texts are more accessible than loosely organized because the audience is less likely to have trouble understanding what your points due to loose ends or tangents. Outlines also make writing that first draft much easier. When you have created the structure, you don’t have to write from start to finish. Instead, you can complete sections in any order and then connect them with transitional writing or narrative. We’ll be using this APA outline checklist to make sure that your outline follows citation and formatting conventions.

First draft: We’ve been focusing on using APA citation and formatting during the composition of the outline and annotated bibliography, but a news feature is not an academic text. Although we are composing this in an academic content, we should attempt to compose the actual feature for an audience of feature readers. This might mean the inclusion of additional elements within the text (images, videos, text design, color, headlines, call outs etc.). We’ll do an in-class genre analysis to identify some common elements in feature stories to help you with your own design. The feature should be visually interesting and content deep. (**remember our purpose to inform AND entertain).

When the first draft is ready, we’ll be doing peer review on the drafts. Peer review can be extremely helpful for the following reasons:

But, it’s only helpful if it’s well-done!! As such, before we do peer review, we’ll be developing some guidelines around the process (sample peer review guidelines)

Finally, the final draft! The final draft is the first time I’ll provide formal, written feedback on your assignment. Up to this point, you will have to use your best judgement, the genre checklists, and peer feedback for revision and editing purposes. For the final draft, I’ll provide formal, written feedback on both the feature story and the annotated bibliography and either accept your work or ask for a revision.

If revision is requested, you will have one week from the request to complete the revision (a specific date will be provided with the request, if any). You must revise the work if requested. Failure to revise means you get no credit for the assignment. Possible reasons for revision requests include improper formatting, the assignment not fulfilling all of the assignment criteria, or some other major structural issue. Revision requests very rarely happen if you follow the assignment schedule and complete all associated parts of the assignment. We’ve usually caught and corrected issues long before the final draft comes in.

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ASSIGNMENT REQUIREMENTS
This assignment contains two formal parts: an  annotated bibliography, and the feature story. You must complete both parts and any requested revisions of any of the parts. Failure to submit any of the formal parts of the assignment means no credit on the full assignment.
Citation system for the  annotated bibliography is APA. The feature should contain extra textual elements to increase appeal to a wider audience and make the document visually interesting.
Sources: You must have at least four sources for your news feature.
Source distribution is one academic (peer reviewed) sources from a CCNY library database, one primary (survey, field notes, interview etc.), and two “other” (newspaper/magazine articles, videos, biographies, social media posts, pamphlets, posters, flyers, images, etc.)
The news feature should be at least 1500 words.
Submission and peer review dates listed on main schedule page
Summary submission schedule is below:

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