Informal Writing # 2- – Respond to Ephron’s “The Boston Photographs”
Choose ONE of the topics/questions (see below “Topics/Questions to consider”) and write a response essay:
Length: 300 typed words (about one page)
Audience: the instructor
Structure and Organization: The essay must be well-structured and paragraph must be well-developed with evidence from the text to support your assertions.
Format: Use MLA style (see “MLA Sample Paper” and/or EasyWriter p.253). Double space your essay in Times Roman pt 12. Do not write a separate title page. In your upper left hand corner, double spaced, include your name, your instructor, the course, and the date of submission. Create a Header in the upper right corner by using your header/footer feature. Give your essay a precise, interesting title, and center your title on the page.
Topics/Questions to consider:
- At what point does Ephron’s argument begin to emerge? How does she present information about the photographs? Why do you think she chooses to structure her argument as she does?
- How does Ephron refute newspapers’ justifications for printing the photographs? What might she argue should be the purpose of photojournalism? Do you agree with this purpose? Why of why not?
- “Death happens to be one of life’s main events,” Ephron writes in her essay, arguing that the photographs are important although they are “not news.” How does knowing that the woman died in the fall affect the viewer’s feelings about photographs? Write a short essay in which you decide whether or not the photograph should have been published? Does Ephron’s argument change your minds?
- Find a startling photograph recently printed in a newspaper or magazine, and argue for or against its publication, using Ephron’s terms and your own.
About the author: Nora Ephron (b. 1941) started her writing career as a reporter for the New York Post, and since then has written for numerous magazines, including New York, McCall’s, and Cosmopolitan. Ephron’s collections of essays on popular culture include Wall Flower at the Orgy (1970), Crazy Salad (1975), and Scribble, Scribble: Notes on the Media (1978). The essay “The Boston Photographs” appeared originally in Esquire in 1975.
