Thursday, September 4, 2008

It's All About Good Storytelling...

A number of classes have benefited me on my career path and with my senior project during my time here at Westminster College. In fact, I find it hard to choose just one broadcasting class that I would reference as the “best.” However, that’s not what I’m choosing to blog about, and here are my reasons why…

I love storytelling and, consequently, writing. Every since I was young, all I wanted to be when I “grew up” was a writer. As soon as I started to read books, I began writing my own stories. And
although I never finished them, I knew what I loved to do. So when I came to college, I started to wonder, what will I do with my life? I didn’t really see myself making it as a “professional author,” at least not right away, so I turned to broadcasting as a way to apply my love for writing into a practical field.

Class after class,
I still wondered, did I make the right decision? I liked broadcasting, and I seemed to have a knack for it, but I still felt like I wasn’t following my “life-long goal.” Now, granted plans change, but I still wanted to do something with writing.

During the fall semester of my junior year, I had to take a cluster class. This involves two classes from different disciplines that focus on the same subject area. The one I took studied translation, and the class that I would like to talk about that influenced me was the English side of it, called “Translating America.” Dr. Swerdlow, an accomplished writer and poet, was the professor for the class.

Throughout the course, we studied all kinds of poetry and discussed social issues/questions about life in America. We also reflected on a variety of questions about these subjects during the term and kept journals to explain our thoughts and answers. The class encouraged me to think openly and freely about the world and the people of America.


Although, this wasn’t a broadcasting class, I still think it helped me tremendously with my career goals and my senior project. This class reminded me that good broadcasters still need to write well, and although poets write in a different style, there’s still room to be creative and inventive with your writing, delivery, expression, and use of sound throughout a story. Just like any poet, a broadcaster must be in tune with the world, attending to its every detail, so as to report what they see, what they hear, to report reality, so that everyone can feel like they were there in that moment. In addition, I will complete a handful of feature stories about the history of Lawrence County for my senior project, which gives me the opportunity to be a little more creative with my writing. I just need to open my mind.


In my opinion, broadcasting is all about good storytelling…

1 comment:

Brad Weaver, BC Instructor said...

Finally...some praise for the cluster program! When students participate and embrace clusters, they really take you somewhere.