Hard News Article

As part of my PCM 300 (Professional Writing) course, I wrote a hard news-style story. This article is fictional and will not be published; it's just a sample of my writing ability. It's written in a style intended for a school newspaper.


Alverno Disability Support Services

Alverno College issued a statement today reminding its students of the disability support services offered.

“When students with disabilities can identify and develop their strengths, they feel good about themselves and take more risks to achieve their goals. So in addition to accommodations, I provide them with strategies and support,” said Colleen Barnett, Alverno’s Coordinator for Student Accessibility.

She estimates 3% of Alverno students have disabilities, which include learning disabilities, chronic medical problems, and sensory and mobility problems. Any student that thinks she may be eligible should contact Barnett and schedule a meeting. “Bring documentation of your issue if you have it. Even if you don’t have documentation, you may still be eligible.”

Many services are offered for disabled students. Alternative testing, tutors, physical access, advocacy, and coaching are just some listed on the Alverno website.

An Alverno student who asked for her name to not be disclosed commented on her experiences with the disability program, saying, “I would have never gotten as far as I have without the support offered through Barnett. So many assignments – maybe even courses – would have slipped through the cracks in my earlier semesters. Now that I’ve learned how to communicate my needs and concerns effectively to my instructors, I’ve become a much more capable and independent student.”

The Office for Student Accessibility is a fairly recent addition to Alverno. According to Barnett, she originally served as a teacher at Alverno. In 1991, one of her students had dyslexia. She began research on dyslexia to teach this student more effectively, which caught the attention of Barnett’s supervisor. Accommodations for disabled students existed but were spread across several departments. Plans were made to merge them into one comprehensive unit. Alverno’s disability services program launched in 1995 when several services were consolidated into the new office.

Students interested in disability services can visit http://www.alverno.edu/campus_resource/Academic_support/disability.html.

My professional career

Over the four years I've attended Alverno College, I've worked hard to find my areas of strength.

I have always loved history, mythology, literature, and the natural world. I toyed with the thought of being a veterinarian or a paleontologist as a child, but I didn't seriously consider my options until I moved onto college. I was contemplating becoming a biologist when I first enrolled, but those dreams were quickly squashed. Although I love animals, I could never become a Steve Irwin-style naturalist. I'm not much of a traveler and I don't have patience for the eccentricities of the outdoors. Science and math are also closely intertwined. After taking six years of Algebra-level courses, I've vowed to stay far away from math-heavy professions. The studies of a scientist didn't fit me, so I began focusing my interest in my English abilities.

I've been a voracious reader and writer since childhood. I quickly learned the finicky rules of English and expanded my vocabulary. Over my lifetime, I've acquired an uncanny ability to spot grammar and spelling errors in other people's works. I used to be timid speaker, but Alverno's aggressive policy on group-work and presentations have mended that weakness.

Almost everything I've written in college has been papers or feedback for my classes, the majority being focused on literature. However, this semester, I am taking both a creative writing class and a professional writing class. The two classes have challenged me to expand my writing experiences. The first's tasked me with writing original memoirs and stories, and the other, styles of media such as advertisements, newspaper articles and blogs. These new approaches will make my writing abilities more flexible -- a gift that will serve me well.

What kind of a career am I looking for with my experiences and abilities? Together with my planning for a career, I'm currently in the middle of planning an internship. My hope is that I'll be able to find an organization related to history and/or writing to intern in and learn more about the field. (I had been interested in some animal-related organizations, but they didn't work out.) I'm looking forward to applying my abilities in the workplace, and finding more about my potential niche.

Radical Wuthering Heights

One of my current courses is the Gothic Novel, where I am currently studying an interesting novel from the Victorian era.

Wuthering Heights, published by Emily Bronte in 1847 (and originally published under a male pseudonym, Ellis Bell), is a very unusual book from its time. Characters in Wuthering Heights fight, manipulate, have affairs, and even drive each other insane. On top of that, one of the novel's main characters, Heathcliff, is a character that resembles Satan from Milton's Paradise Lost. He behaves wickedly throughout: kidnapping a girl and forcing her to marry his son, raising the child of his rival as a lowly house-servant, and abusing his wife, among other faults. But, oddly, he is ruggedly handsome and sympathetic in his quest for revenge against those who have wronged him and his passion to reunite with the woman he truly loves. These behaviors and character types are no surprise to modern audiences, but in its time, it was shocking.

Wuthering Heights was unpopular to contemporary critics of the time, but things got even worse when it was revealed the book was created by a woman, too. Emily Bronte was raised in a proper middle class family and lived a reserved life in the English countryside with her sisters. Yet, she wrote a novel that horrendously offended Victorian sensibilities of the day. Not only did she decline to blank out most of her character's swearing, as was thought proper, but she also wrote about characters and situations that no lady like her should. Many critics became unnerved. "How could a gentlewoman write this?"

In comparison, another Gothic writer, Mary Shelley, had also written the shocking Frankenstein a few decades before. However, both Mary Shelley and her mother were notorious as active writers and feminists. Radical writings from women like them were not entirely unexpected.

In a preface added posthumously to Wuthering Heights, Emily's sister, Charlotte Bronte, almost sounds apologetic as she explains how her sister created the book's scenario and especially the character Heathcliff. She gives the background of her sister's rustic and peaceful life in the countryside, saying, "...the writer who possesses the creative gift owns something of which he is not always master -- something that at times strangely wills and works for itself." She adds an analogy of a person carving a statue out of rock, "...Hewn in a wild workshop, with simple tools, out of homely materials...He wrought with a crude chisel, and from no model but the vision of his meditations. With time and labour, the crag took human shape: and there it stands colossal, dark, and frowning, half statue, half rock in the former sense, terrible and goblin-like; in the latter, almost beautiful..."

In other words, Emily Bronte's powerful imagination (not experience) gave rise to the provocative character of Heathcliff. This explanation may or may not have soothed nervous readers of the time. No matter how the inspiration for the novel was obtained, however, it is a striking story considering the conservative circumstances it was written in. I think it’s terrible that Wuthering Heights was Emily Bronte’s only novel. (She died not long after publishing it.) I would have liked to see more of her extraordinary writing!