Searching around the web, it’s easy enough to locate very fine samples of syllabi focusing on the teaching of literary or narrative journalism. The IALJS has a terrific list of its own, and there are other excellent samples you can find, e.g. from Josh Roiland (annotated on the Neiman Reports site), William Dow, and David Greenberg–among others. And that’s only on the English-speaking, largely U.S. side of things.

Nevertheless, if you agree with the findings of Jeff Neely and Mitzi Lewis in their fine survey of pedagogy in this field (in The Routledge Companion to American Literary Journalism), students also put a premium on the what of what we teach: on the contents of the texts on such syllabi, and what those contents tell them about the natural and social world around them.  A finding which bears, in turn, upon a limitation that I’ve often found in our syllabi (including in my own). That is, our course plans often implicitly foreground two approaches:

• First, presenting “the tradition” of such writing, often moving from classics to the present; or
• Second, something of a “cafeteria” effect: implicitly, we say “here are some different ways long-form journalists write.”

Those two pedagogical plans are commonly featured, I should say, in courses or programs dedicated to teaching practical skills in writing and reporting or in “humanities-affiliated” courses.

Now, it’s not that there’s anything wrong with those two approaches. Students often arrive in our courses unfamiliar with this kind of writing—or, how to react to it analytically—and as teachers we don’t often don’t have time to broach, say, (a) the matter of how “traditions” or “canons” are constructed in the first place, (b) issues of representation around nationality, ethnicity, gender or race—or, why such things matter. Moreover, I doubt that we have much chance to tell our students (c) why a given news trade or outfit privileges some kinds of writing and not others. We can talk about such things—but they’re not built in.

But back to the “what.” You’ll notice that contents—well, seems to be taking a back seat. On the other hand, thinking about these issues makes me remember that, as a teacher, quite often the best results came when I set up sub-set or syllabus modules that were subject-based—for example:

• two literary journalists writing (or podcasting) about the criminal justice system (Sarah Koenig and William Finnegan, in “Doubt”);
• on sports (Darcy Frey and Michael Lewis);
• on migration  (Isabel Wilkerson and Sonia Nazzario);
• on the “forever” wars in the Middle East (Dexter Filkins and David Finkel or Ryszard Kapuscinski).

What I found was this approach more quickly arrived at questions of (1) access, (2) news framing, (3) subject relations (e.g. is the journalist’s informant a criminal, a lawyer, a footsoldier, a migrant and so on).  But best of all, it produced two other effects. First, we found ourselves talking about the news—that is, topics that students were liable to be reading about on their own. And two, we were raising questions about selection and pedagogy itself: why read this book instead of that one? Why does that writer talk about a subject the other leaves untouched. And so on.

And so, when I’m looking around for syllabi these days I’m starting to look for subject-based approaches.  If you know of any good examples yourself, please offer a comment. Thanks.