Sun Mar 5
Sunday Story: Questions for Virginia Heffernan
Virginia Heffernan will join us in class on Thu Mar 23.
Peruse the resources below and create a Medium story or original video that ends with a question for Virginia.
Virginia Heffernan (born August 8, 1969) is an American journalist and cultural critic. She has worked as a staff writer for The New York Times — first as a TV critic, then as a magazine columnist, and then as an opinion writer. She has also worked as a senior editor for Harper’s, a founding editor of Talk, a TV critic for Slate, a fact checker for The New Yorker and a national correspondent for Yahoo News. Her 2016 book Magic and Loss: The Internet As Art argues that the Internet is a “massive and collective work of art” and a “work in progress”, and that the suggested deterioration of attention spans in response to it is a myth. Heffernan is known as a playful, stylish and erudite writer; in 2014 Ben Yagoda in the Chronicle of Higher Educationnamed her among his top candidates for “best living writer of English prose”, and she has been called “one of the mothers of the Internet”.
Here is a link to Virginia’s recent book “Magic and Loss”. To access this book, log into our class account: bhsecbooks@gmail.com / password: cutandpasted
Here is the New York Times’s review of her recent book: “Magic and Loss”.
Here is a link to articles Virginia has published in The New York Times:
Here is a page on her website with links to video (worth watching at least one of these):
Here is a link to Virginia’s Twitter home page:
Here is a link to Virginia’s Medium home page:
MORE INSTRUCTIONS FOR THIS ASSIGNMENT
If you create a video, aim for at least 45 seconds and NO MORE than 90 seconds
- introduce yourself in your video
- make sure your video is more than “just a talking head” — include at least two of the following (multiple edits, music, voice-over, title/credits, other on-screen text, original photos, captured photos, web video) — be thoughtful and deliberate in your editing choices
- make sure your video is easy to hear and see (important: check to be sure!)
- end your video with a question for Virginia present your question(s) both verbally and ALSO as on-screen text
If you create a Medium story, aim for approximately 250 words.
- introduce yourself in your Medium story and include a photo (or video) of yourself
- end your video with a question for Virginia
Creativity and innovation in this work is encouraged and will be rewarded.
