Teaching literary journalism: Intentional meandering in the literary journalism classroom

Authors

Marcus O'Donnell, University of WollongongFollow

Abstract

What makes the literary journalism classroom a particularly creative one is the permission to experiment. It is an opportunity towards the end of a degree program to rethink core ideas about journalism, core ideas about writing, core ideas about ethics and core ideas about how to bring all these ideas into alignment. This is the unique pedagogical value of literary journalism. It is one of the few areas of journalism that takes both the world and the personal immensely seriously. The symbolic and the factual, emotion and observation, the tangible and the intangible all jut up against one another. So it becomes one of the few opportunities within the journalism curriculum where the deeply personal – who am I and how do I express what is unique and important to me – is given space.

Recommended Citation

O'Donnell, Marcus, Teaching literary journalism: Intentional meandering in the literary journalism classroom, Current Narratives, 4, 2014, 34-37.
Available at:https://ro.uow.edu.au/currentnarratives/vol1/iss4/5