Class Prep- April 20

"Student Winners Follow the Famous"

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/19/books/19scho.html?pagewanted=all
Alternative Lead:
"In 1932, a senior at Erasmus Hall High School in Brooklyn won second prize in a writing contest for a story called "Life - From Behind a Counter," about working in his father's grocery store. "

"The story ends with a salesman telling the boy, 'vat you see in vun day, und vat you hear in vun day from dese people - you can write a leetle book about.'"

"I nodded - only I thought, 'I could write a big book,' " wrote the 18-year-old author."

"The storyteller was Bernard Malamud, who would write many big books and win many awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for 'The Fixer.'"

The lead is multi- paragraph. It fits into the "A sense of history" type lead that we discussed on Monday. It takes readers back to a specific event that happened at an earlier period in time. I also think that the lead could fit into "The individual in a dramatic moment," however, the story has a different focus.

The main point of the story was about the Scholastic Awards, which began in 1923 with seven literary entries, and since then have attracted thousands of students to apply for one of the $10,000 scholarships and possible national recognition. The article touches on the fact that after Sept. 11, students were submitting disturbing literary works that dealt mostly with depression, however, art work and stories of that type are becoming more rare. The availablity of information is changing what teenagers are writing about.

I think that the nut paragraph is the fifth paragraph of the article:
That early notice for the future literary star came from the Scholastic Awards, begun in 1923, when the contest sponsor, the Scholastic Publishing Company, received seven original writing submissions. This year, 200,000 middle school and high school students entered, along with an additional 50,000 competitors in the photography and art categories, for the national prizes now known as the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards.

I think that the writer makes good use of anecdotes. There are many different places in the story where the writer tells the different stories of various people who have won the award and what it has done for their future. It allows readers to get the sense that this award is very important to many students.

The story begins by describing Bernard Malamud, a storyteller who received many awards including the Pulitzer Prize. Although the lead makes it seem as though the story is going to be describing the life of Malamud, the writer does not go into very much physical detail about him.