Feature Story Brainstorm

Who is your main subject?
My grandpa

Supporting interviews (who else do you need to talk to, minimum 2 other people)?
My mom and my grandma

What is the topic or potential topic?
I know my grandpa was really poor as a young boy and that he has some interesting stories revolving around his life during that time. I also know he was in the military and has experience in many other jobs, but that he is now owner of the business, Carson Properties. My mom said he had a very eventful life, so I'd like to dig deeper into that information and find out how he grew from a young boy into successful businessman. I don't know what exact topic I'll focus on yet, but I think I will easily be able to pick a main focus after interviewing him.

Which angle from above will you write the story?
3rd person

Questions:

  1. When and where were you born?
  2. What do you consider the hardest time period of your life? Why?
  3. How did these tough situations shape/change you as a person?
  4. What is the scariest situation you have been caught up in?
  5. What situations in your life do you consider the most significant?
  6. What regrets, if any, do you have about how you have lived your life? What would you change looking back?
  7. What were the biggest setbacks you overcame in your early life? What about later in life?
  8. How do you think your struggles impacted your perspective on life, especially as a child?
  9. If you had to sum up your life story in a very short manner, how would you describe it?
  10. Who were your biggest influences as a child?
  11. Where did you go to school throughout your life? Did you enjoy it?
  12. What about your career makes it interesting to you?
  13. What do you consider your greatest accomplishment? Why?
  14. Did you ever picture yourself living your current life when you were a child?
  15. What are some of your best memories?
  16. How did you raise your children differently from how you were raised?
  17. How did having children affect your life?
  18. What important lessons did you learn throughout your life?

Supporting Interview Questions: Mom
  1. Describe your childhood and what it was like.
  2. What were some of your best and worst memories?
  3. What are some interesting things you've learned about your dad throughout your life?
  4. How would you describe your dad?
Supporting Interview  Questions: Grandma
  1. How was your life similar to and different from Grandpa's?
  2. What are some interesting things you've learned about him throughout your life?
  3. What do you find most interesting about your knowledge of his childhood?
  4. What have you enjoyed about living and being married to him for so long?

Research: will do when choose to narrow down on specific subject


Write when you plan to conduct the interview(s)?
Thanksgiving at my grandparents' house

Where you will interview them?
At my grandparents' house, probably in a quiet setting/room

How will you record the information?
Take notes and record the conversation

Comments

  1. sophiaTNovember 16, 2017 at 7:43 AM

    There is only 1 closed ended question and 19 open ended questions (good). 2 questions to ask your main source: What they thought they wanted to be when they grew up? or What position he might be in if he didn't do some of the things in his life?

    1 question for the secondary source: How proud was she of her dad's accomplishments?
    A relevant secondary source would be to interview any siblings or friends of your grandpa.

    The audience is somewhat clear: people who love interesting life stories and adventures. Just people who want to listen to a story of any sort. Because you don't know what kind of story your grandpa has yet, we'll just have to see what the moment will be and then we'll know what the purpose of the piece is. The questions that interest me the most are the ones where your grandpa will have to go back to his childhood and share those experiences. All the questions are pretty good and will hopefully be easy and interesting for your grandpa to answer.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Karis' Journalism BlogNovember 16, 2017 at 8:04 AM

    a. You’ve got 2 close-ended questions, but the rest are good, open-ended ones.
    b. Two more questions you could ask your Grandpa: What were your parents like? Did they inspire you in any way?
    c. A question for your Grandma: Did he change your outlook on life?
    d. If your grandpa had any siblings, maybe you could interview them. Or friends of your grandparents.
    e. 1. The audience is people who enjoy hearing about other people’s lives. The purpose of this piece is to share a story with others.
    2. The writer’s main point in these questions is unclear to me, but when they find their main topic, I think it will be.
    3. I’m most interested in question 7, because it will reveal a lot about her Grandpa.
    4. Question 1 could have more detail, like they could add how it affected him.
    5. I didn’t really find any questions unclear, but some questions were sort of redundant, like just rephrasing.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Dispatch Issue #5

News- The Lockdown The story is about the Akins lockdown that took place on February 22, which was the result of a former student boarding a bus heading towards the school with ammunition. Senior Bee Barto and teacher Sarah Simmons were interviewed to share theyr experiences. Sarah Simmons and Bee Barto were quoted. I thought the strongest quotes was, "But I wanted to make sure it was a drill and I did see a SWAT team in the hall. It was at that point that I knew it was not a drill." The lead sentence did make me want to keep reading because I had heard about the event and wanted to learn more. The conclusion was a quote. Commentary- Arming teachers is not the solution  The story is about Donald Trump's suggestion that teachers should be amed with guns in response to the recent shootings that have occurred. The author completely disagrees and believes it will only add to the issue by burdening teachers with too much responsibility, adding more dangerous aspe
Read more

Free Write - Embarrassment

Settled in after a long day, I finally got the chance to lay down and relax. I shut out the sound of the TV downstairs as my eyes began to slowly close, my exhaustion taking over. My mind takes me back to third grade. Mrs. Grance’s class was generally a good class, but there were definitely some bad days consisting of the kids not getting along or the teacher being way too intense for third graders to handle. In second grade, one of my closer friends was named Atticus, who now is a freshman at Bowie too. Being young, we were still very childish, so messing with each other was an every day occurrence. Sometimes we took our play a little too far, but I never minded, it was all fun and games. One day, we were completing an assignment that required teacher approval along the way, which meant that people were walking to and from their seats to our teacher a lot. For some reason, Atticus was laying down and working on the “class carpet” at the front of the room, so when I would go up to
Read more