Muckraking Assignment US History

During the Progressive era, muckrakers came to the forefront of American culture by exposing problems relatively

unknown to the general public. Upton Sinclair, for example, wrote The Jungle (we talked about this in class) to bring

light to the corruption and terrible working conditions in the meatpacking industry in Chicago. These muckrakers

sometimes had great success: The Jungle for example, horrified so many people, including President Roosevelt, that

laws were passed in an attempt to regulate the meatpacking industry.

Assignment: Apply the muckraking style of writing to our current Presidential campaign. You and a partner will write a

newspaper article exposing some type of unfair, shocking, unjust, or relatively unknown situation surrounding one of

this year's Presidential candidates. They have provided you all with plenty of material to draw from. You should be

going for {(shock value"; in other words, try to write about something that you think few of your peers know about. The

most successful articles will expose little known issues/pasts/positions that will shock your classmates (they need to be

entirely factual). Unsuccessful articles will detail things that most have already been informed of (Trump wants to build

a wall; Bernie wants free college, etc.). Although these are important topics, they have already been shared/exposed

and will not surprise anyone. Your goal should be to outrage your audience.

Comprehensive list of presidential candidates:

Democrats

Hillary Clinton

Roque De La Fuente

Republicans

Jeb Bush

Ben Carson

Chris Christie

Ted Cruz

Third party candidates

Gary Johnson (Libertarian)

Jill Stein (Green)

MichaeIBloomberg(lndependent)

Martin O'Malley

Bernie Sanders

Carly Fiorina

Jim Gilmore

Mike Huckabee

Jolm Kasich

Rand Paul

Marco Rubio

Rick Santorum

Donald Trump

Format: You should write an article, in newspaper format, including the following:

1. Headline - Grab the readers' attention. Sensationalize and make is shocking!

2. Facts - Find some facts and/or figures to support your position on the topic in question ... or candidate.

3. Quotes - Tell people (not in your class) about what you have uncovered and get their reaction. Attempt to get

the explanations for people involved (Republican or Democratic representatives in Bellingham)

4. Short paragraphs - look at a newspaper article. Notice that paragraphs are often very short to break up the

writing and make it more reader-friendly and appealing to the eye.

5. Attention-grabbing detail

a. Leave a lasting impression on your reader

b. Use details memorable enough to make the reader think

Your article must be typed.

Headline must be larger than the main body font

You must have your name in the byline (ex: by Joe Smith under the title)

Your article's main body should be in size 11 font, single spaced.

Your article needs to be a minimum of 1 ~ pages in length.

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