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Exonian
reporters- at-large go in search of people with interesting stories
to tell.
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What's
the Scoop?
For
three decades, Exeter students in their upper year have gone in search
of interesting people to interview for their Reporter-at-Large papers.
The Reporter-at-Large (or R-a-L, as it is known) tests students' skills
in writing a longer composition that incorporates a narrative over time,
dialogue, and detailed description. Students are required to choose a
person to interview and observe in action for part of a day, preferably
someone they don't know. Most students conduct their interviews over the
December break and return to the Academy with reams of notes, ready to
go through the process of writing multiple drafts that will be reviewed
by their English 320 teachers. The final product is a paper roughly eight
to ten pages in length that is both a profile of the subject and a narrative
describing the person on the job or engaged in some other activity. Over
the years, students have written about a wide range of people, from plumbers
to monks to trapeze artists. One student accompanied an EMT on ambulance
rounds; another spent a day with a baker and observed the process of selling
bread, from baking in the early morning hours to delivery in a paneled
truck.
In the prep and lower years, students focus on writing personal narratives
in their English classes. They master the art of close observation based
on their own experience. The R-a-L assignment, the only paper that all
instructors agree to teach at the 11th grade level, asks students to write
from a different point of view. English instructor Peter Greer, who has
been teaching the R-a-L since 1972, says, "For this assignment the focus
shifts from the self to the other. Students must step back from their
experience in the interview. They must minimize their response and maximize
what they have observed of their subject's experience. It's more objective
than the writing they have done up to now. Then in senior year, with the
meditation assignment, they come full circle. They bring the perspective
they gained from writing the R-a-L and apply it to a personal essay that
takes a wider view."
When making the R-a-L assignment, instructors caution students to choose
a subject who will be engaged in an observeable activity during their
time together. They advise against interviewing famous people or family
friends. Most of all, they urge students not to fall into the trap of
the "sit down R-a-L," where the subject simply sits and talks (this strategy
may give the student reporter little to write about). They also suggest
that taking notes is more efficient and less intrusive than using a tape
recorder.
"So many students have told us what a great experience doing the interview
has been," English instructor David Weber comments. "A lot of the time
wonderful things happen as a result of this assignment. A student who's
thinking about becoming a veterinarian gets to spend a day with a veterinarian,
for instance. It's an assignment with both an intellectual and a developmental
dimension, that requires thematic abstraction in the writing."
A group of students from Greer's class who have just completed their papers
agree with this assessment. "I have more confidence as a writer now,"
Ben Courchesne '01 says. "Having the time and the forum to let the paper
develop as it wants makes a difference. We had the most liberty with this
paper of any of our assignments."
In addition to the time they take to complete the interview and record
their notes, students spend approximately two to three weeks on the assignment
itself and produce at least two drafts of the paper. Kirsten Durocher
'01 notes that there were a number of surprises in writing the R-a-L.
"I interviewed someone I did know - the vice principal at my old high
school - but I realized I did not really know her until I spent that day
with her. The chance moments were most important, the things you wouldn't
think of writing down, like the way she drank her coffee or held a pen
or the tone in her voice. I learned it was important to observe carefully."
At Prize Day in the spring, awards will be given for the most outstanding
R-a-L papers. In this issue of The Bulletin, we include excerpts from
papers written by students this year that demonstrate the range of subjects
observed and the skills of these young writers in bringing a person to
life on the page.
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