JTC 328 Feature Writing

Overview of Course

Students who take this course will use the techniques of journalism to write feature pieces that combine strong story lines with travel-related topics or themes. Students will learn the ethical principles of news writing and practice using the standard tools of journalistic feature writing, including background research, observation, interviewing, attribution, audience awareness, precision and accuracy, and fairness and balance. Students will also learn how to craft a compelling story line and employ the tools of narrative nonfiction, including dialogue, scenes, characterization, and setting. Because students will take this course while aboard a ship steaming between port cities on four continents, their feature pieces will focus on travel, broadly defined, and incorporate a wide array of interests, including culture, history, politics, technology, business, nature, art, cuisine, music, sport, and health. Students will draft and revise their feature pieces in collaboration with their classmates and under the mentorship of an instructor with decades of experience in the writing classroom and a record of publishing narrative nonfiction and travel writing. Students will also read feature pieces by published authors that model the blended techniques of narrative nonfiction, journalism, and travel writing. By the end of the course, students will have learned to use the power of narrative to write travel-related feature pieces that capture the attention of their target audience, offer insightful reporting, and adhere to the standards of ethical journalism.