In Professor David Gold’s English 325 course, Art of the Essay: Magazine Writing, students learn the basics of writing for magazines: finding and pitching story ideas, researching and interviewing, developing a story and finding a voice to tell it, and revising and editing for publication.
Focusing largely on writing features—pieces that go beyond the news to give us the story behind the news—students gain practice with shorts, profiles, trend pieces, and in-depth investigative stories that serve the public interest. The course requires students to consistently write to deadline, increasing the length and complexity of their work as the course proceeds. To conclude, students publish an online magazine, The Mich, showcasing the journalism skills they’ve developed.
For Vol. 8 of The Mich, students investigated the impact of AI on writers and teachers, the future of the humanities, and more. Here are some examples:
Check out the whole issue, as well as back issues, at https://themich.org/.
