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Feature Articles

What is a feature article?

Feature articles are one of the most prominent genres of writing in newspapers and magazines today. Almost every article you read in a magazine is a feature article whether it is written about which make-up to buy or how to help your child in school. Feature Articles are everywhere.
While there is no specific definition to be found in a dictionary or listing of journalistic terms, a feature article can be defined by its features:

• Feature articles can be written at any time or at a specific time of the year such as seasons or holidays. In other words they are not front page news stories.

• Authors who write feature articles write about topics they are familiar with or topics that grab their interest.

• They are written with factual information that can be researched.

• Feature articles can be written about any topic.

From teachwriting.com

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Paragraph 1 (Intro): Share what made the person famous or unique.
Paragraph 2: Share what they did before they were famous or how they became famous.
Paragraph 3: Contains details about their fame or accomplishments. Share how they influenced others with their fame or unique talent.
Paragraph 4: Shares a quote about the famous person or shares an experience from their life in detail.
Paragraph 5 (Closer): Shares last known facts about their life and reinforces how their influence lives on today.

This your PERSONAL ESSAY folder only. Post your work in the comment boxes.

This your PERSONAL ESSAY folder only. Post your work in the comment boxes.

Conversational topics that get you excited, or news stories that make your blood boil or get you laughing out loud, are likely to be provide good fodder for essays. Small gripes and observations also offer worthwhile material.

However ‘big’ or small’ the subject is, however important or trivial it might seem on the surface, make sure you set it in a frame that allows your reader to identify, empathize, and be involved.

The hook is the device you use to get your reader’s attention. It’s the doorway through which you welcome and orient them to the piece. Try using:

*          A question. (“When was the last time you went without a meal?”)

*          A quotation from someone famous or something you’ve read/overhead. (“Be careful” were the last words my father said to me each time I left the house.

*          A strong statement that your essay will either support or dispute. (“If you eat enough cabbage, you’ll never get cancer.”)

*          A metaphor. (“The starlings in my back garden are the small boys in the playground, impressing each other with their new-found swear words. The crows all belong to the same biker gang. You need to know their secret sign to join their club.)

*          A description of a person or setting. (“Michael once mowed the lawns around Municipal Hall wearing a frilly apron, high heels and nylons, with a pillow stuffed under his sweater so he looked pregnant. And it wasn’t even Halloween.”)

Write as evocatively as possible. Employ all the senses. Using sight comes naturally to most writers; push harder to convey ideas and images through sound, taste, touch, and hearing.

*          Think of your essay as a camera lens. You might start by describing a fine detail (your personal experience or perspective, a specific moment in the narrative), then open up the lens to take in the wide view (the general/global backdrop), then close the piece by narrowing back to the fine detail. Or go the other way. Start with the wide view, focus in, then open up to the wide view again.

*          Take your ideas from wherever you can. Note your reactions to everything, pursue passing preoccupations and distractions, consider what makes you, glad, angry, passionate in what you read, see and hear. Mine your own past for incidents, images, lessons and epiphanies.

*          In a personal essay you have the freedom to think what you like on a subject, but your reader should go away with a good idea of why you feel that way.

Many forms of writing require authors to keep themselves out of the story. Writing personal essays and opinion pieces allow you to have your say, and guarantees you an audience who’s willing to listen.

By Lois J. Peterson

http://www.poewar.com/having-your-say-writing-personal-essays/

After reading, choose ONE of the following questions and write a response of at least 100 words. Use examples and explanations to support your thinking.  Don’t forget to mention the title and author of your book.1.  How is a character in your book similar to a character in another book, story, or movie?
2.  What does this book remind you of in your own life?  Why?
3.  What does this book make you wonder about? Why?
4.  What just happened in your book, and what do you think will happen next? Why?
5.  What character do you like most in this book and/or what character do you like least?  Why?
6.  What was one of your favorite lines (or sentences) in what you read today? Copy it down and tell why you liked it. (It can be more than a sentence if you like, but not too long�you still need to write 100 words of your own.)
7.  Explain how the author creates suspense in this book.
8.  How did what you read  today make you feel?  Why?
9.  What do you think about a particular character’s actions?  Was he/she right or wrong to do that?
10.  What is confusing in this book?  Why?  (Be specific)
11.  What advice would you give to a particular character?  Why?
12.  What do you wish could happen in this story?  Why?
13.  Do you think you would read another book by this author?  Why or why not?
14.  Which character would you like to be like?  In what way?  Why?
15.  What other character(s) beside the main character is really important to the story?  How and why?
16.  Make up a motto that one of the characters seems to live by.  How and why does this fit the character?
17.  Which character would you like (or not like) to be your friend? Why?
18.  If you could change one thing in the book, what would it be?  Why would you change it?
19.  What has surprised you in the book?  Why?
20.  What in the book upsets you or bothers you?  Why?

Please note that one does not have to finish the book in order to respond to it.  These are not necessarily “book report” questions.  The questions focus on how a reader connects with or engages with a text. It’s how them make personal meaning of what they read. Also, although most of the questions best fit novels, some questions work just as well with non-fiction or informational texts (e.g., questions #2, #3, #6, #8, #10, #13, #18, #19, #20).

Response:  How about some open-ended sentence starters:

I was surprised…
I wonder…
I wish…
I didn’t understand…
I learned…

Would you recommend this book to others? Why or why not?
What kind of person do you think would like the book you’re reading?
How does this book make you feel?
Is there anything about this book that you don’t like?
How did the author of your book get you interested in the story?

© 1998-

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This is your PERSONAL NARRATIVE folder ONLY.

In your Paper WNB, you have already:

·You have “I” on a blank page and started to tell your narrative.

·You have told the story as it flows from your mind.

·You have let the story rest in its scattered, unfocused form.

In your online WNB, you will:

·Begin rewriting. Shaping events in a way to best suit what you want to say.

·Rejoice when the aha! of your experience is revealed.

·Re-write, re-write, and re-write. Little white lies are okay.

·Use language that is full of words that tap into the senses.

·Get feedback from a reader.

·Re-write.

·Have the essay read aloud. Listen.

·Fine tune and tweak.

·Grin from ear-to-ear when everything on the page reveals the aha! in the experience perfectly.

These simple suggestion are courtesy of essortment.com

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