ED BOND ONLINE

ASSIGNMENT # 1 

The Obituary 

Imagine you walk out of this classroom, trip over a stray cat and fall head first into the pathway of an oncoming maintenance cart. The maintenance worker is unable to stop in time. Splat! You're dead. 

It's a horrible and morbid thought, but what if it did happen? 

How would you want the story written? How would YOU want to be remembered? 

How would you sum up a life in a few words? 

That's the job of a reporter, and your assignment, to write your own obituary in 500 words, which should be about two pages, typed and double-spaced. 

Of course as reporters you will learn to write about the lives of others, but I wanted to begin with an exercise where you already knew the subject well. 

Your first step will be to read Chapter 19 in the textbook, which will give you plenty of examples of the proper obit form. It also gives a good checklist of facts that should be included in an obit. 

You do not have to use the scenario I just gave you. You may invent any kind of death that you like. You could die five minutes from now or fifty years from now. You could die as a war hero or as a 95-year millionaire. You probably will base your story on the truth up to this point in your life and then let your imagination go. 

Then turn off that imagination and become the professional reporter you aspire to be and write the obit. NOTE: This will be the ONLY work of fiction you will write for this class. 

You may want to look up some of the obits that ran of celebrities that died recently like Sonny Bono, Michael Kennedy or John Denver. Just remember you are writing the obit that first announces the person's death. You aren't covering the funeral or a related story. 
 

AP style: 

If you died Monday and you are writing the story for Tuesdays paper, you refer to the day of the week -- Monday. If, for some reason, the death happened more than a week ago, you use the date only -- June 6. But, NEVER use both the day and the date. 
 
 

This is due in ONE WEEK. And, here's the proper format for this and all future assignments:  
[NOTE: Format must be double-spaced, even though this Internet example is not.]