Part 8 (1/2)

THRILLERS

”'Tis strange, but true; for truth is always strange, Stranger than fiction.”

BYRON.

I. a.s.signments

1. Relate the most exciting adventure that has occurred to you. Use the third person. Reporters usually are not allowed to use the p.r.o.noun ”I.”

2. Relate the most exciting adventure that has befallen any person whom you personally know well enough to interview on the subject.

3. If you can obtain material in neither of the foregoing ways, get a story from the movies, after the manner suggested in the following dispatch:

TEACH REPORTING BY ”MOVIES”

_Journalism Instructors at Columbia Use Films to Develop Students' Faculty of Observation._

Reporters' ”copy” telling in graphic style of the Balkan War poured into the ”city room” of the newspaper plant at the Columbia University School of Journalism yesterday. The reason was that moving pictures had been adopted as a means of giving to the students an opportunity to exercise their powers of observation and description in such a fas.h.i.+on as would be required of them in real newspaper work.

The idea of using a moving picture machine to train future newspaper reporters in accuracy of observation was originated by Professor Walter B. Pitkin, and was approved immediately by Dr.

Talcott Williams, director of the school. Dr. C. E. Lower, instructor in English, is the official operator, but this work will probably be given later to a student.

4. A last resort is literature. In Stevenson, Poe, or Conan Doyle, you can probably find a story that can be translated into a sufficiently thrilling newspaper dispatch.

II. Models

I

Colonel Folque, commander of a division of artillery at the front, recently needed a few men for a perilous mission, and called for volunteers. ”Those who undertake this mission will perhaps never come back,” he said, ”and he who commands will be one of the first sons of France to die for his country in this war.”

Volunteers were numerous. A young graduate of a polytechnic school asked for the honor of leading those who would undertake the mission. It was the son of Colonel Folque. The latter paled, but did not flinch.

His son did not come back.--_Boston Herald_.

II

Villagers in fear of death were scuttling out of little homes like rats driven from holes by flood.

One person in the village remained at her accustomed post and from time to time recorded into the mouth of a telephone receiver the progress of the conflict, while a French general at the other end of the wire listened. Presently her communications were interrupted. ”A bomb has just fallen in this office,” the girl called to the general. Then conversation ceased.

It is always that way with the telephone girl when tragedy stalks abroad and there is necessity to maintain communication with the outside world. The telephone girl of Etain may be lionized in lyric literature. She deserves it. The telephone girl of Etain may find brief mention in history. She deserves that much at least. And yet the telephone girl at Etain is but one of her kind the world over.--_Sioux City Journal_.

III. Oral Composition

1. Point out in each story the situation, the climax, and the _denouement_.

2. Discuss the meaning of ”polytechnic,” ”lionized,” ”lyric.”

3. Discuss the etymology of ”volunteers,” ”mission,” ”graduate,”