I Saw It All. Then I saw nothing.

This article written by Daniel Hellinger was a first-hand account of him witnessing the two towers of the World Trade Center collapse. He immediately starts off by giving the dramatic action in chronological order in the first paragraph, "I saw the airliner at the instant it hit the north tower of the World Trade Center. A little later I saw the flames burst out of the south tower when the second airliner hit it. I saw people fall from atop the World Trade Center. I saw the south tower fall down. A little later I saw the north tower fall down. I have, in the past several hours, looked into lower Manhattan, and in each time, where the World Trade Center stood, there is absolutely nothing."
He goes on to say this is something that he is going to wish he had never seen. It will probably haunt him for the rest of his life. He talks about the joy of commuting into New York City every morning, seeing the Statue of Liberty and all the skyscrapers in the beautiful blue sky. Next, he flashes back to earlier that morning when he came to the city 15 minutes earlier to pick up a tuxedo at Brooks Brothers, right across the street from the World Trade Center. He then was walking to a small cofee shop at 8:45 AM as he witnessed the first plane hit the Trade Center.
He vividly describes exactly what he saw that morning. "There was a wide gash across the north trace of the tower, very high up, and gray smoke was billowing out of the gash, and there was a large fire inside the building. The sky was filling up with a massive wall of black smoke and orange flames."
He concludes by saying, "I kept looking up at the sky, above the famous old Woolworth Building where the World Trade Center stood, its two side-by-side towers, so high against the sky. I always saw the same thing, which was nothing."
This was a very emotional, descriptive, and overall well-written article. He uses many of the narrative techniques and even gives us a sense of actually being there at the time by painting such a good picture of this tragedy he witnessed.

Lopez Article

The article I chose by Lopez was "Strangers' Paths Cross: a Boy's Life Hangs in the Balance". The main character is former San Diego fire chief Jeff Bowman. This article uses internal dialogue in first person point-of-view. For example, Danny says "I thought, Oh my God, whats going to happen? Am I going to die? My brain had no idea what was going on but my body said hold on.
There is a form of irony in this article. It is that Danny was supposed to play Patrick Henry in his school play with his big line being "Give me liberty or give me death." The poor boy is fighting to live and will either be free or die.
The author uses narrative to tell this amazing story of how the courageous boy survived. It is mostly third person with some first person internal dialogue by Danny.
Some of the techniques used included:
Character- Danny
Dramatic Action- Danny being hit and dragged by a car
Place- Palisades Circle, LA
When-September 20

Eat this you fat idiot!

I found this article by Morford quite interesting and entertaining. I do not necessarily think he is insulting the reader, rather he is giving his own very strong opinion about the fast-food industry, especially Wendy's new burger the "Baconator". Although, it might be offensive to people who enjoy eating fast-food regularly.
I liked his style of writing because Morford got straight to the point and told the truth(at least in his opinion). He used descriptive, eye-catching words, and I never got bored while reading this article. The thing that turned me off was how he targeted Wendy's and may have insulted people who eat "sickenly brownish-gray, chemicalblasted 1/4 pound beeflike patties, intersliced with two slabs of neon-orange cheeselike substance,slathered with mayonaise, all topped with six strips of bacon."
I think this article would be more suited for people in bigger cities like San-Fransisco and Chicago because of the diverse populaltion of people. Also, I have noticed while visiting large cities that people tend to eat healthier and live healthier lifestyles than in smaller cities so they may be more likely to agree with Morford. With that said, I do not think it would fly too well in midwest cities such as Springfield and smaller surrounding towns.

Feature Story I find interesting

I found this feature story in the Chicago Tribune titled "Body art bias varies in workplaces". It is about how people with tatoos are having more difficulty finding jobs and keeping jobs because of their body art. It says that about 40 percent of Americans ages 26-40 have at least one tatoo. That is a very large percentage of our population. I find this story very interesting because so many people have tatoos and I think they should really think about how it might affect them in the workplace before getting a tatoo.
David Shutt has experienced discrimination throughout his life in the workplace due to his tatoos. I like when he reccomends to people, "Before anyone at any age gets a tatoo, they need to think long and hard what they're going to get and where it is going to be put, because people do discriminate against you."\
(I still need to post the link doc, I need to reread how to do that.)

Possible story from my observations

After reading back through my 25 observations, I found one in particular that I think could make a good story from. The one I chose was a pregnant woman smoking inWriggleyville in Chicago that I witnessed. I think I would first do some research on the health risks of pregnant women smoking and maybe some statistics of how many pregnant women smoke on average in the United States. I would probably talk to pregnant women and get their views on smoking while pregnant and talk to doctors about the damage they could cause on the unborn child. After doing some research and getting some stats, I think I could write an informative story on the risks of women smoking during pregnancy.

Donald Murray dies at 82

I think that any professional writer (which you claim us all to be Doc, even though I do not think I am) can learn a tremendous amount about writing from Donald Murray. He was a great writer all of his life and did not let his age affect his writing. At age 82, he still felt he was writing the same as he did at age 17. Murray was a motivated writer who constantly challenged himself. Writing was his passion. He believed a blank piece of paper could be turned into somethink magical and full of surprises. One thing to learn from Murray is to follow your dreams and bhallenge yourself to do the best you can.

Suprise, Suprise!

Donald Murray defines suprise as "a delight in what writers do not expect to find" at the beginning of Chapter three. Murray demonstrates the point that we can find suprise at any time and any place which could always lead to a potential story. His 25 observations at the supermarket was a way for him to catch suprises by watching what is going on and jotting his thoughts down on a piece of paper. In order to report for suprise, Murray says we must use the writers ten senses which are sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste, change, effect, conflict, context, and self. A good story needs to also have details by answering-who, what, when, where, why, and how? Murray also says it is important to brainstorm and make a list, then look at items from your list that suprise you and circle them.

25 Observations

I was walking around on the streets in Wriggleyville in Chicago on Sunday early afternoon and decided to sit on the sidewalk with my pad of paper and write down some observations.

1. Many people are walking fast and seem to be in a hurry.
2. Many people are walking dogs.
3. Some joggers working up a sweat.
4. One homeless guy begging everyone for money.
5. Many different ethnicities of people.
6. Cabs are everywhere on the streets.
7. Cars are constantly honking horns.
8. Lots of people wearing Cub's gear.
9. Many peole on their cell phones.
10. Crazy Chicagoan drivers slamming breaks and swirving.
11. Two cars run a red light.
12. Cigarette buts all over sidewalks.
13. A man and woman in a fight screaming at each other right in front of me because he supposedly ditched her at a bar last night.
14. Many buses everywhere
15. Pregnat woman is smoking cigarrete.
16. She throws her cigarette but right by me almost landing on my lap.
17. Restaurants and bars everywhere.
18. Many couples holding hands.
19. Airplane in sky with a banner promoting a club for tonight.
20. One couple is now making out in front of me.
21. One guy is wearing a Cardinal's hat and shirt in wrigleyville and the Cubs are playing in St. Lous right now.
22. Not too many obese people in Chicago compared to Springfield.
23. A loose black lab comes up to me and I pet him, then he licks my face.
24. A little kid runs in street nearly getting hit by a car- Where are his parents?
25. I have observed enough- time for me to go in a bar, get a beer and watch the game!