Final Responses

Camillo- I like this profile of a fun, if somewhat typical, international student at K college. I think your kicker kind of describes the rest of the piece in that he's a motivated young African man who is definitely going places. I liked the idea you're using for your documentary better though, I'm interested to see the tension between local students and the international kids. Maybe Rufus sees one of the in state kids wasting a bunch of food in the caf, that could be dramatic. I don't know what I'd change here besides your subject, but I think I've just read too many student profiles.

Marni- I like this piece as an expose of a pretty selfish and misleading system, but I was kind of looking forward to you trashing it or flipping out like in class. I like all the people you chose to interview, especially students who don't have a meal plan presumably, it makes it more relevant to our campus. I also thought that in class you said you had interviewed a Meijer employee of some sort, or you said you couldn't, anyway I think it would be good to have some really weak, bullshit defense to support your offense. 

Schafer- Really good opening and I like how you characterize Bardeen from a student's perspective, which means it was idealized and made up. I like that groups of students intending on participating in illegal activities don't overlap, but rather vie for the location or intentionally ignore each other. Weird, nitpicky complaint, I think you use 'some' too often, some pot, some shad, some solar rays, it's not totally necessary, you know? Way to incorporate soil creep in there too, did you take Physical Earth? I think I would try to add some conflict between the people that frequent the spot. Like a scene of the security guard chasing out some pot-smokers, or get some stories from students about experiences there. 

Mary- Good job at profiling a culture and interviewing people that are really pertinent to your expose, as it were. It's really interesting how much you bring up the legal issues, and how you compare our naked culture to that of other higher education institutions. I was wondering where the elbow-breaking part was, I thought that was going to fit in right when you were talking about observers sexualizing nudity. You're writing is really tight as always, and I'm not sure I agree with Marin about you not including yourself in it. You insert yourself for a second which makes you seem unsure too, so say take the plunge or just keep your pants on, so to speak.

Emily- I enjoyed your descriptions of your relationship to Bourdon, especially the fourth paragraph and the kicker, it's really indicative of what you called 'search for role models.' I think you could have expanded on Africans being agressive towards her husband just to inject a little drama, and I think you slip a little too much into her history as opposed to the meat of her personality, you know? But that kind of thing is hard when you're just sitting down in the Strutt, you have to hang out with people for months to get their real personality on paper. She does come through in her quotes though, and I like her city persona. 

Maureen- This is an interesting profile, I think kind of a revisal of your last one, and this one is definitely better. I like the explanatory Pixely, and then the illustrative Javin. It's interesting he talks trash about the cliques, but that's really what he wants. I was wondering what his life was like back home, more specifically in high school. I really like your little details about who his neighbors are and a little bit of your interpretation of his habits quickly rectified by his interpretation of his habits. I like that he is so contradictory, saying certain things and feeling others, and so it was really good that you had Pixely's comment about counter-intuition in there.