Pizza, I mean, Reading Assignment/Comparison

So I read the handout you gave us in class and the story in the book that you wanted us to compare. The story in the book, Los Angeles Notebook, was a very dark and depressing piece. Although the story was about the weather of California, which is far different from Illinois, I was able to easily able to relate to the dark feelings one can feel due to their environmental surroundings, namely, the weather. The choppy writing style was used to paint a picture of the chaos of the setting of the story. It was a good tool to use, and it certainly gave the piece a confused, hopeless, dark tone. The question I was left with, however, after reading this story is the following... WHAT THE HELL IS A SANTA ANA?!?!?!

Los Angeles Notebook was far different from the handout article I read. Contrary to LA Notebook, this article was uplifting and gave you a feeling of motivation and the desire to better oneself. Its chronological story setting was far more "normal" in comparisson to LA Notbook. And painted the picture of hope, dignity and self-worth as opposed to despairity, helplessness, and isolation.

Bull Run vs. Iraq

These two stories are very different from eachother although they cover the same sort of topic. In the Bull Run article, it is obviously much longer of an article and goes into great detail of what is going on in both sides, etc. It is comprised of long block paragraphs, wordy story-telling, and boring details. The Iraq article, on the other hand, is written in a very action-packed way so as to draw you into the story and make you feel like you're actually there. I, of course, prefer the more recent article on Iraq, but I clearly have a biased opinion considering it's from my own time period.

What I Want To Learn In This Class

Well, I really have no idea so far. I'm just happy to have figured out what class this is called! I would really like to read different literature though and find the differences between journalism lit and lit as I know it. Is journalism literature anything besides just articles written and published in magazines, newspapers, etc.??