Voyages with Johanna Cleary

Students Report International Stories

2009-06-04T06:27:00.000-07:00

Students in Travel Reporting wrote and reported a variety of news and feature stories while in France. Topics included “Why Travel to Bordeaux,” “Spa Options You May Not Know About,” “The Shrinking Impact of Religion in Europe,” "Staying Fit While Traveling," and “Misadventures on the Road to Rome.”

Students worked on stories in print, radio and television formats. Click here to see links to their stories.

Classes Meet Media Professionals in France

2009-04-09T11:55:00.000-07:00

Students in RTV 4930 and 4931 met with National Public Radio's Eleanor Beardsley while in Paris to talk about the challenges of being an international journalist. She discussed covering the Sarkozy election and administration, along with many other topics. Beardsley also told students about the ethics issues associated with working as a reporter in another culture.

Beardsley, whose father is a graduate of the University of Florida, files stories from Europe for Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and MarketPlace, among other NPR programs.

Both classes also toured France 24, a relatively new 24-hour news channel based in Paris. The station's signal is streamed live on line and covers diverse communities within France and beyond. Students learned about how the channel program three signals simultaneously in French, English and Arabic.

Expanding Horizons or Taking Advantage?

2009-04-07T18:56:00.000-07:00

What do you think of the trend of so-called "Poverty Tourism"? The Wall Street Journal wrote about this kind of trip where tourists pay to see people living in some of the worst conditions in the world. Supporters say it helps increase awareness of the lives of the most-often ignored people in society and benefits them financially at the same time. Opponents say it exploits people for the benefit of others. What do you think? Post your comments here.

Twittering Your Research

2009-04-05T04:30:00.000-07:00

Are you Twittering or thinking about it? New York Times reporter Matt Gross writes the "Frugal Traveler" column for the newspaper and recommends Twitter as a way of gathering up-to-the-minute travel information when you're researching a new location.

Here's more on his experiences: http://frugaltraveler.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/help-for-travelers-twitter/?ref=travel If you want to follow his Tweets, he's at http://twitter.com/frugaltraveler

Gordon Rule Status Granted

2009-03-25T17:24:00.000-07:00

Good news for those looking to accrue Gordon Rule credits! The study abroad version of RTV 4931 (Ethics and Problems) has been granted 4,000-word Gordon Rule status for this year.

Great info on Paris!

2009-02-14T16:58:00.000-08:00

There are lots of great resources out there with useful information on Paris. One of the best recent collections of articles is Gourmet Magazine’s September 2008 "Paris on a Budget" issue available at http://www.gourmet.com/services/presscenter/pressreleases/september-2008-release

Check it out!

Gators Conquer Lake Wauberg!

2009-02-14T13:11:00.000-08:00

Study Abroad 2009 hosted its annual Lake Wauberg Day on February 14. About 45 Gators who will be participating in this year’s trip to France got to know each other through team building activities and social events. Several brave participants and professors even scaled the Wauberg Tower! The event is an annual tradition for the COJC study abroad program. Other pre-trip events include group meetings to discuss the culture and conventions of France and to have a chance to hear from citizens of our host country. Professors are also meeting with their students before the trip to discuss class assignments.

Listening to The House at Sugar Beach?

2009-01-30T13:16:00.000-08:00

One of the books we will read in RTV 4931 (Ethics and Problems) is Helene Cooper's The House at Sugar Beach about growing up in Liberia and how that influenced her to become a reporter for the New York Times. You can hear her talk about the book at http://books.simonandschuster.com/House-At-Sugar-Beach/Helene-Cooper/9780743266246
It's a great read, but you may want to consider listening to the audio books version which is narrated by Cooper. She does a wonderful job of capturing the flavor of the story in her delivery. Either way, I'm interested in reading your comments about the book. (Feel free to post comments here.)

Travel Reporting Book Assignment Announced

2009-01-11T08:56:00.000-08:00

Several of you are already starting the reading for our travel reporting class. That's a great idea since it will help prepare you for the other assignments while we are in France. Here's a preview of the reading requirement. (The related books are detailed in the Dec. 26 posting.) This assignment will count 20 percent of your final course grade.

Write a 750-word book review including the three books assigned for the class. The books are A Sense of Place, Travelers’ Tales: France and The Best American Travel Writing 2008.

The assignment is due at the start of class on May 11. Your review should be typed and you should turn in a hard copy.

You can include additional information, but in your review please address the following questions.

Questions for A Sense of Place by Michael Shapiro
Select two of the travel writers featured in A Sense of Place whose work interests you and contrast their approaches to selecting topics, researching them and their self-described writing style. Evaluate what you could learn about travel reporting from the authors and their work. Use their ideas about travel writing to critique work you read in the following books.

Questions for Travelers’ Tales: France by James O’Reilly
Select at least two of the stories in Travelers’ Tales and critique them based on the techniques and philosophy of the writers you selected from A Sense of Place. Analyze how successfully – or unsuccessfully – the authors carry out their assignments.

Questions for The Best American Travel Writing 2008
Select at least two of the stories in The Best American Travel Writing and critique them based on the techniques and philosophy of the writers you selected in A Sense of Place. Also provide your analysis of whether the stories are successful or not based on these criteria.

Final Book Lists Announced

2008-12-26T06:45:00.000-08:00

New books have been added to the reading lists for RTV 4930 and 4931. All are available through on-line services such as Amazon and Books-A-Million and many can be purchased through local retailers.

There will be assignments related to both reading lists due during our time in France, so it’s a good idea to get an early start on the reading!

For RTV 4930 (Ethics and Problems) the new addition is: Travelers’ Tales: France, edited by James O’Reilly. San Francisco: Travelers’ Tales (2002). This collection offers vignettes written by travel writers about France, including life in rural and urban France.

For RTV 4931 (Travel Reporting) the new additions are: Travelers’ Tales: France edited by James O’Reilly. San Francisco: Travelers’ Tales (2002); and Best American Travel Writing 2008, edited by Anthony Bourdain. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company (2008). Part of an annual series, this book includes travel stories collected from leading publications, featuring great writing and exotic locations around the globe.

This completes the required books for the two classes, but each class will also have a required course pack which will be available later this Spring. Stay tuned for an announcement on that.

The rest of the required books for the two classes are listed below.

Partial Reading Lists Announced

2008-11-14T10:00:00.000-08:00

If you would like to get started on the reading for your study abroad class, here’s a preview of some of what will be on the required reading lists:

RTV 4931 Ethics and Problems
In The Hot Zone: One Man, One Year, Twenty Wars by Kevin Sites. (New York: Perennial, 2007.) Backpack journalist Kevin Sites became known as the NBC photojournalist who recorded the video of a Marine executing a captured Iraqi prisoner in a mosque. Sites writes about the ethical dilemmas journalists face in wartime situations. He also gives insight into how journalism is changing because of technology.

The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood by Helene Cooper. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2008.) New York Times reporter Helene Cooper grew up as a privileged child in the African nation of Liberia in the 1970s. Her life changed forever when her family was caught up in a violent coup. Cooper writes about how those events shaped her decision to become a journalist covering many of the world’s hotspots.

RTV 4930 Travel Reporting
A Sense of Place: Great Travel Writers Talk About Their Craft, Lives and Inspiration by Michael Shapiro. (San Francisco: Travelers’ Tales, 2004). Shapiro interviews some of the top travel reporters and writers working today about their successful techniques. Borrow some inspiration from their great ideas!

Returning to France

2008-11-07T13:03:00.000-08:00

After visiting France twice - once in 1996 and again in 1997 - I look forward to returning in May 2009.

France has always meant adventure to me. It was one of the first countries I wanted to visit after taking French in high school and reading Hemingway's A Moveable Feast. I think if I could visit one point in history, I would pick Paris in the 1920s.

In addition to visiting Paris before, I've briefly passed through Lyon, Nice and Strasbourg. I look foward to visiting the western part of the country with our trip to Bordeaux.