Stop and pay attention
A media writing scavenger hunt
“Get outside. Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people.” — Timothy Snyder
This week’s theme is about paying attention. As I wrote on Top Hat: “Media writing is about gathering and sharing information, truths and stories about the world around you. This means that you can’t effectively fulfill this mission unless you use your senses, powers of observation and analysis.”
To practice paying attention, use the notes you took from the Diederich College of Comm scavenger hunt to answer the questions below. Copy the questions and paste them into a reply to this post.
Review what you wrote about what you found in Johnston Hall last week. Then look at your notes. Did you miss any details? What are the advantages and disadvantages of writing without looking at your notes?
What did you learn from eavesdropping on a classroom?
What’s something you learned from a magazine or newspaper?
What is the Marquette Tribune editor in chief doing today?
What can you find out about the professor you wrote down from the directory? What have they researched? What are they known for?
What did you say in the note you put in a professor’s mailbox? What skills did you learn from this person?
What did you learn from the student who works in student media?
What alum from the Alumni Hall of Fame inspires you and why?
What did you see when you visited a new floor in Johnston Hall?
What Marquette alumna won a Pulitzer for reporting on AIDs in the Heartland? Now find her interview with Poynter. What is a tip that she shared about paying attention in interviews?
Embed the tweets you sent to Dean Kimo Ah Yun.
What do you notice when you turned your phone off?
Finally, a challenge for tomorrow. Don’t check your phone in the morning until after breakfast. Write down what you notice when you do this.
There are a thousand beautiful ways to start the day that don’t begin with looking at your phone. And yet so few of us choose to do so. — Craig Mod, How I Got My Attention Back
