You are a reporter for a local news organization who has received this
statement by e-mail early this morning. Your assignment is to write a
story of between 350 and 375 words based on the police and lawyer’s
statements. Be sure to carefully attribute the information to the police
and keep in mind that much of what is reported are allegations. Some
of what is reported below can be taken as fact, including the death and
its apparent cause. Other information is at this point the police version
of what happened. That does not mean it is not true, just that it must be
properly attributed.
In the interest of fairness, note early what the lawyer said regarding her
client and incident
Your lead ought to summarize the key facts, such as the alleged murder
and arrest, but not include names or estimated times. Those kinds of
details are best wrapped into the body of the story.
Objectively, you are not able what actually happened. You have the
police reporting to you that Mrs. Wong offered two versions of what
she did before the shooting.
Finally, ask yourself what is the best order of facts beyond the lead.
STATEMENT FROM THE IRVINE POLICE DEPARTMENT
TODAY’S DATE
At approximately 11:40 last night, we received a telephone call from a
person who identified herself as Sandra Wong. She sounded quite
distressed in informing us that she had just arrived home to find her
husband, Robert Wong, dead on the floor of the family’s Irvine home.
We responded along with paramedics and arrived at the home in the
600 block of Birch Street in Irvine. Our officers, upon entering the
kitchen, found the body of a man who had been shot several times. It
was determined he was deceased, the apparent victim of multiple
gunshot wounds. He has since been identified as Robert Wong, 47, a
resident of the home.
Sandra Wong, 42, was at the residence and confirmed she had placed
the call.
Officers observed that some kitchen appliances were scattered on the
floor. In the living room, a lamp and vase were overturned. The
displaced items suggested that a violent event had occurred.
In initial questioning, Mrs. Wong said she had gone to a movie theater
alone in the hours before her husband’s death.
She added that she did not know who might have murdered her
husband. But she speculated that it might have been one of his many
enemies. He had engaged in unethical business dealings, Mrs. Wong
said and had large unpaid debts. His inappropriate actions caused him
to have many enemies, she claimed.
However, officers determined that there were inconsistencies in
accounts of Mrs. Wong’s whereabouts between 7 pm. and her reported
arrival home at 11:20 pm. Mrs. Wong was unable to explain why it had
taken her 20 minutes to alert the police after finding her husband dead.
She became nervous and agitated as the police interview continued,
especially as they focused on her activities before the emergency call.
Officers surveying the crime scene noted there were no signs of forced
entry, suggesting that the killer had easy access to the home or was
allowed in.
They also noted an abrasion below Mrs. Wong’s right eye and another
on her left cheek. Questioned about it, she told officers she sustained
the injury in a fall the previous day.
A search of the premises turned up a.45 caliber handgun. It was
wrapped in a cloth and inside a trash receptacle in a corner of the
backyard.
Mrs. Wong at this point then admitted her earlier account was
inaccurate and offered this version of events:
She and a few friends decided to go out for drinks. Mrs. Wong said she
did not inform her husband, as he would not have approved. He was
extremely jealous, she said. The couple had been undergoing severe
marital difficulties, Mrs. Wong said, mostly due to his verbally and
physically abusive nature. This problem had been ongoing for a few
years, according to her, and recently had become more serious.
Mrs. Wong claimed that he had struck her at least three times in the
past six months. Our department has no record of such incidents, and
Mrs. Wong added that she chose not to report them in the hope
relations could be repaired through marriage counseling. According to
Mrs. Wong, the couple has never attended counseling sessions.
As soon as Mrs. Wong arrived home, she told officers, Mr. Wong
angrily confronted her about her outing. He became extremely
agitated and struck in the face three times with his fist. He threatened
to kill her and appeared on the verge of assaulting her further, she
said.
At that point, Mrs. Wong allegedly retreated to a bathroom where she
had hidden a handgun in the event she needed to defend herself from
her husband.
Mrs. Wong said she returned to the kitchen where she had been
arguing with her spouse. According to her, Mrs. Wong brandished the
weapon and warned Mr. Wong that she would not hesitate to shoot
him should he attempt to assault her. This act greatly enraged her
husband, Mrs. Wong told officers, and he lunged at her.
She then fired the pistol repeatedly, striking Mr. Wong numerous
times. This attack was necessary, she asserted, to protect herself from
grave bodily harm or death.
Investigating officers determined that based on the available evidence,
Mrs. Wong had to be taken into custody. Officers carried out the
arrest without incident.
She has been booked and charged with first-degree murder and illegal
possession of a handgun
The couple’s children, ages eight and ten, were asleep upstairs. They
were unharmed. The children are in the custody of Children’s
Protective Services pending placement with relatives.
An hour after the e-mail arrived, you receive a phone call from a
woman who identified herself as Evelyn Thomas, Mrs. Wong’s
attorney. She asks you to take note of a statement she is going to
read. Here it is:
“My client, Mrs. Wong, is suffering from battered woman syndrome.
As such and because her life was in danger during her husband’s
recent assault, Mrs. Wong was legally justified in defending herself.
She will be pleading not guilty to the charges and looks forward to
having this tragic event fairly adjudicated in a court of law.”
Thomas said that’s all she has to say for now but will announce a
press conference in the next few days
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Subject-Specific Writing
Journalism and Journalistic
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Journalism and Journalistic
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Introduction
AP Style
Media Ethics
The Inverted Pyramid
Writing Leads
Press Releases
Giving to the OWL
Suggested Resources
How to Write a Lead
Summary:
These resources provide an overview of journalistic writing with explanations of the most important
and most often used elements of journalism and the Associated Press style. This resource, revised
according to The Associated Press Stylebook 2012, offers examples for the general format of AP
style. For more information, please consult The Associated Press Stylebook 2012, 47th edition.
Contributors:Christopher Arnold, Tony Cook, Dennis Koyama, Elizabeth Angeli, Joshua M. Paiz
Last Edited: 2013-04-06 07:04:07
Introduction
The lead, or opening paragraph, is the most important part of a news story. With so many
sources of information – newspapers, magazines, TV, radio and the Internet – audiences
simply are not willing to read beyond the first paragraph (and even sentence) of a story
unless it grabs their interest. A good lead does just that. It gives readers the most important
information in a clear, concise and interesting manner. It also establishes the voice and
direction of an article.
Tips for Writing a Lead
-MLA Guide
-APA Guide
-How to Navigate the New OWL
-Media File Index
-OWL Exercises
1. The Five W’s and H: Before writing a lead, decide which aspect of the story – who,
what, when, where, why, how – is most important. You should emphasize those aspects
in your lead. Wait to explain less important aspects until the second or third sentence.
2. Conflict: Good stories have conflict. So do many good leads.
3. Specificity: Though you are essentially summarizing information in most leads, try to
be specific as possible. If your lead is too broad, it won’t be informative or interesting.
4. Brevity: Readers want to know why the story matters to them and they won’t wait long
for the answer. Leads are often one sentence, sometimes two. Generally, they are 25 to
30 words and should rarely be more than 40. This is somewhat arbitrary, but it’s
important – especially for young journalists – to learn how to deliver information
concisely. See the OWL’s page on concise writing for specific tips. The Paramedic
Method is also good for writing concisely.
5. Active sentences: Strong verbs will make your lead lively and interesting. Passive
constructions, on the other hand, can sound dull and leave out important information,
such as the person or thing that caused the action. Incomplete reporting is often a
source of passive leads.
6. Audience and context: Take into account what your reader already knows.
Remember that in today’s media culture, most readers become aware of breaking news
as it happens. If you’re writing for a print publication the next day, your lead should do
more than merely regurgitate yesterday’s news.
7. Honesty: A lead is an implicit promise to your readers. You must be able to deliver
what you promise in your lead.
What to Avoid
1. Flowery language: Many beginning writers make the mistake of overusing adverbs
and adjectives in their leads. Concentrate instead on using strong verbs and nouns.
2. Unnecessary words or phrases: Watch out for unintentional redundancy. For
example, 2 p.m. Wednesday afternoon, or very unique. You can’t afford to waste space
in a news story, especially in the lead. Avoid clutter and cut right to the heart of the
story.
3. Formulaic leads: Because a lot of news writing is done on deadline, the temptation to
write tired leads is strong. Resist it. Readers want information, but they also want to be
entertained. Your lead must sound genuine, not merely mechanical.
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Purdue OWL: Journalism and Journalistic Writing
4. It: Most editors frown on leads that begin with the word it because it is not precise and
disorients the reader.
Types of Leads
Summary lead: This is perhaps the most traditional lead in news writing. It is often used for
breaking news. A story about a city council vote might use this “just the facts” approach.
Straight news leads tend to provide answers to the most important three or four of the Five
W’s and H. Historically this type of lead has been used to convey who, what, when and where.
But in today’s fast-paced media atmosphere, a straightforward recitation of who, what, when
and where can sound stale by the time a newspaper hits the stands. Some newspapers are
adjusting to this reality by posting breaking news online as it happens and filling the print
edition with more evaluative and analytical stories focused on why and how. Leads should
reflect this.
Anecdotal lead: Sometimes, beginning a story with a quick anecdote can draw in readers.
The anecdote must be interesting and must closely illustrate the article’s broader point. If you
use this approach, specificity and concrete detail are essential and the broader significance of
the anecdote should be explained within the first few sentences following the lead.
Other types of leads: A large number of other approaches exist, and writers should not feel
boxed in by formulas. That said, beginning writers can abuse certain kinds of leads. These
include leads that begin with a question or direct quotation and those that make a direct
appeal using the word you. While such leads might be appropriate in some circumstances, use
them sparsely and cautiously.
Examples
Summary lead:
County administrator faces ouster
By Tony Cook for The Cincinnati Post, Jan. 14, 2005
Two Hamilton County Commissioners plan to force the county’s top
administrator out of office today.
Commentary: This lead addresses the traditional who, what and when. If this information
had been reported on TV or radio the day before, this lead might not be a good one for the
print edition of the newspaper; however, if the reporter had an exclusive or posted this
information online as soon as it became available, then this lead would make sense. Note that
it is brief (15 words) and uses an active sentence construction.
Summary lead:
Lobbyists flout disclosure rules in talks with commissioners
By Tony Cook and Michael Mishak for the Las Vegas Sun, July 13, 2008
On more than 170 occasions this year, lobbyists failed to file
disclosure forms when they visited Clark County commissioners,
leaving the public in the dark about what issues they were pushing
and on whose behalf.
Commentary: This lead is more representative of the less timely, more analytical approach
that some newspapers are taking in their print editions. It covers who, what and when, but
also why it matters to readers. Again, it uses active verbs, it is specific (170 occasions) and it
is brief (35 words).
Anecdotal lead:
Tri-staters tell stories of the devastating tsunami
By Tony Cook for The Cincinnati Post, Jan. 8, 2005
From Dan Ralescu’s sun-warmed beach chair in Thailand, the Indian
Ocean began to look, oddly, not so much like waves but bread dough.
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Commentary: This article is a local angle on the devastating tsunami that struck Southeast
Asia in 2005. As a result of the massive death toll and worldwide impact, most readers would
have been inundated with basic information about the tsunami. Given that context, this lead
uses an unexpected image to capture the reader’s attention and prepare them for a new take
on the tsunami. Again, it is brief (23 words).
Question lead:
Same lobbyist for courts, shorter term, more money
By Tony Cook for the Las Vegas Sun, June 29, 2008
What’s increasing faster than the price of gasoline? Apparently, the
cost of court lobbyists.
District and Justice Court Judges want to hire lobbyist Rick Loop for
$150,000 to represent the court system in Carson City through the
2009 legislative session. During the past session, Loop’s price tag
was $80,000.
Commentary: Question leads can be useful in grabbing attention, but they are rarely as
effective as other types of leads in terms of clearly and concisely providing the main point of a
story. In this case, the second paragraph must carry a lot of the weight that would normally
be handled in the lead.
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This is an excellent example of news media writing. It is not quite 200 words, and yet the story
delivers the day’s events and some background.
Peshawar, Pakistan (CNN) [This is called the dateline. Despite the name,
nowadays there is no date, just the place where the story was reported and
written} -- At least 17 people were killed and more than 30 others wounded in an
explosion that ripped through a bus carrying government employees in northwest
Pakistan on Friday, authorities said.
This is a model lead. In 34 words it first conveys the most important news, that
people have been killed and injured. It gives readers a fairly specific number of
dead and wounded. Next, the lead describes the circumstances of the tragedy,
followed by the place and day. At the end, the information is attributed, letting
readers know the source of the information.
The blast destroyed the bus, police said. It was carrying at least 70 employees of
various departments of the secretariat of Peshawar, the capital of the volatile
province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Police think the explosion was caused by a remote-controlled device planted in a
tin can containing about 6 to 8 kilograms (13 to 18 pounds) of explosives, said
Nasir Durrani, inspector general of police in the province.
No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack.
Note that the three paragraphs above provide less important news compared to
the lead. They also add details not contained in the lead
Hakim Khan, an eyewitness, said the explosion hurled people sitting on the bus's
roof out into fields by the side of the road.
Authorities said 34 people who were wounded in the blast are being treated at
nearby hospitals.
These four paragraphs offer still more detail about the bombing and a bit of
context at the end.
Sikander Khan Sherpao, senior minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, suggested the
attack had been carried out by forces wanting to sabotage recent efforts by the
national government to pursue peace talks with the Pakistani Taliban.
Violence is frequent in Peshawar and the surrounding region
Using the Inverted Pyramid Style of Writing
Traditionally, when composing an essay, we start with a 'foundation' and gradually build to a conclusion in a pyramid
style. We might write an essay or article using the following structure:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Present the problem statement
Related or supporting information
Methodology- How did something occur?
Results
Conclusion, outcomes or most important
information
5. Conclusion
1. Problem statement
Journalists, on the other-hand, use an inverted pyramid style of writing. They generally start with the main conclusion
or outcomes and get progressively more detailed towards the end of the piece like so:
1. Conclusion or most important
information
2. Supporting information
3. Background and technical details
1. Conclusions
3. Details
Since Web users and email readers typically scan text, using the inverted pyramid form of writing is a good way to
get the most important information in front of your readers –first. Position your main points (who, what, when, where,
why and the how) at the beginning of the article, and then go into more detail towards the end of your piece.
Example # 1: Yale Library Celebration
Who, What, Where, When, Why and How: Most Important Information
Yale Library Celebration
In celebration of its 75th anniversary of Sterling Memorial Library, the Sterling Memorial Library announces the
"Treasures of the Yale Library," a season of special events, lectures and tours between October and April, 2006. You
can view more information about any of the anniversary events at: www.library.yale.edu/75th or email your questions
to anniversary75th@yale.edu .
On October 3, the first event of the series will be held in the Memorabilia Room (inside the Wall Street entrance)
between 10 A.M - 4 P.M. A schedule of events and activities throughout the day is listed below.
•
•
•
•
Tour of the “Arts of the Book” Collection in Sterling 11 A.M. - please register at: anniversary75th@yale.edu
Tour of the Preservation Department – see how rare, old or damaged books are repaired, restored and
conserved 2 P.M.- please register at: anniversary75th@yale.edu
“Arts of the Book” Open House noon- 4 P.M.
Manuscripts and Archives Open House – a chance to view close-up some of the treasures of this
rich and diverse collection noon- 2 P.M.
Supporting Information
Human Resources, Internal Communications
The day will also include an “Antiques Road Show” table, hosted by Manuscripts and Archives and the Beinecke
Rare Book and Manuscript Library from 11 A.M.-2 P.M. Employees are welcome to bring old books and documents;
the librarians can advise you about their history and preservation.
Additional Details
Brochures outlining the entire program will be available on campus next week. For more information about the events
during the year, please visit the following web site http://www.library.yale.edu/75th. Please note that some of the
library tours require registration beforehand and that space is limited.
Example # 2: YSM Custodial Services Chooses Employees of the Month
Who, What, Where, When: Most Important Information
YSM Custodial Services Chooses Employees of the Month
Yale School of Medicine’s (YSM) Junious Barnes, Tassoula Nicolaou, Clifton Best, Diane Adkins-Via, Giovanni
D’Onofrio and Douglas Pouncy, Sr. have been honored as Employees of the Month for January through June 2005,
respectively, by a committee of their peers. The six were announced at the first-ever YSM Custodial Services’
Employee-of-the Month presentation on June 29 in The Analyn Center. A luncheon honoring the six recipients was
held with their supervisors and co-workers. Their photos will be displayed in locations on the YSM campus.
Why, How: Supporting Information
The honorees were rated on attendance, personal appearance, attitude and conduct toward co-workers
and customers, initiative, responsibility, flexibility, efficiency and courtesy. YSM Custodial Supervisor
Geneva Coleman announced the winners, who accepted their plaques to the applause and cheers of fellow
custodians and management colleagues, who filled the auditorium. Vibha Buckingham, associate director
of the department, enthusiastically concluded the ceremony with heartfelt thanks to all who made the
department’s inaugural event a success.
Details
Employee-of-the-Month committee members were Crystal Streater, Novella Greene, Jennifer Mueller, Roger Bacote,
Nick Delano and Frankie Galloway.
Human Resources, Internal Communications
2.
Poor Students Struggle as Class Plays a Greater Role in Success - NYTimes.com
December 22, 2012
For Poor, Leap to College Often Ends in a
Hard Fall
By JASON DePARLE
GALVESTON, Tex. — Angelica Gonzales marched through high school in Goth armor — black boots, chains
and cargo pants — but undermined her pose of alienation with a place on the honor roll. She nicknamed
herself after a metal band and vowed to become the first in her family to earn a college degree.
“I don’t want to work at Walmart” like her mother, she wrote to a school counselor.
Weekends and summers were devoted to a college-readiness program, where her best friends, Melissa
O’Neal and Bianca Gonzalez, shared her drive to “get off the island” — escape the prospect of dead-end lives
in luckless Galveston. Melissa, an eighth-grade valedictorian, seethed over her mother’s boyfriends and
drinking, and Bianca’s bubbly innocence hid the trauma of her father’s death. They stuck together so much
that a tutor called them the “triplets.”
Low-income strivers face uphill climbs, especially at Ball High School, where a third of the girls’ class failed
to graduate on schedule. But by the time the triplets donned mortarboards in the class of 2008, their story
seemed to validate the promise of education as the great equalizer.
Angelica, a daughter of a struggling Mexican immigrant, was headed to Emory University. Bianca enrolled
in community college, and Melissa left for Texas State University, President Lyndon B. Johnson’s alma
mater.
“It felt like we were taking off, from one life to another,” Melissa said. “It felt like, ‘Here we go!’ ”
Four years later, their story seems less like a tribute to upward mobility than a study of obstacles in an age
of soaring economic inequality. Not one of them has a four-year degree. Only one is still studying full time,
and two have crushing debts. Angelica, who left Emory owing more than $60,000, is a clerk in a Galveston
furniture store.
Each showed the ability to do college work, even excel at it. But the need to earn money brought one set of
strains, campus alienation brought others, and ties to boyfriends not in school added complications. With
little guidance from family or school officials, college became a leap that they braved without a safety net.
The story of their lost footing is also the story of something larger — the growing role that education plays
in preserving class divisions. Poor students have long trailed affluent peers in school performance, but from
grade-school tests to college completion, the gaps are growing. With school success and earning prospects
ever more entwined, the consequences carry far: education, a force meant to erode class barriers, appears
http://www.nytimes.com/.../23/education/poor-students-struggle-as-class-plays-a-greater-role-in-success.html?hp&_r=0&pagewanted=print[12/23/2012 7:18:44 AM]
Poor Students Struggle as Class Plays a Greater Role in Success - NYTimes.com
to be fortifying them.
“Everyone wants to think of education as an equalizer — the place where upward mobility gets started,” said
Greg J. Duncan, an economist at the University of California, Irvine. “But on virtually every measure we
have, the gaps between high- and low-income kids are widening. It’s very disheartening.”
The growing role of class in academic success has taken experts by surprise since it follows decades of equal
opportunity efforts and counters racial trends, where differences have narrowed. It adds to fears over
recent evidence suggesting that low-income Americans have lower chances of upward mobility than
counterparts in Canada and Western Europe.
Thirty years ago, there was a 31 percentage point difference between the share of prosperous and poor
Americans who earned bachelor’s degrees, according to Martha J. Bailey and Susan M. Dynarski of the
University of Michigan. Now the gap is 45 points.
While both groups improved their odds of finishing college, the affluent improved much more, widening
their sizable lead.
Likely reasons include soaring incomes at the top and changes in family structure, which have left fewer
low-income students with the support of two-parent homes. Neighborhoods have grown more segregated
by class, leaving lower-income students increasingly concentrated in lower-quality schools. And even after
accounting for financial aid, the costs of attending a public university have risen 60 percent in the past two
decades. Many low-income students, feeling the need to help out at home, are deterred by the thought of
years of lost wages and piles of debt.
In placing their hopes in education, the Galveston teenagers followed a tradition as old as the country itself.
But if only the prosperous become educated — and only the educated prosper — the schoolhouse risks
becoming just another place where the fortunate preserve their edge.
“It’s becoming increasingly unlikely that a low-income student, no matter how intrinsically bright, moves
up the socioeconomic ladder,” said Sean Reardon, a sociologist at Stanford. “What we’re talking about is a
threat to the American dream.”
High School
No one pictured the teenagers as even friends, much less triplets. Angelica hid behind dark eyeliner,
Melissa’s moods turned on the drama at home, and Bianca, in the class behind, seemed even younger than
she was. What they had in common was a college-prep program for low-income teenagers, Upward Bound,
and trust in its counselor, Priscilla Gonzales Culver, whom everyone called “Miss G.”
Angelica was the product of a large Mexican-American family, which she sought both to honor and surpass.
Her mother, Ana Gonzales, had crossed the border illegally as a child, gained citizenship and settled the
clan in Galveston, where she ruled by force of will. She once grounded Angelica for a month for coming
home a minute late. With hints of both respect and fear, Angelica never called her “Mom” — only “Mrs.
http://www.nytimes.com/.../23/education/poor-students-struggle-as-class-plays-a-greater-role-in-success.html?hp&_r=0&pagewanted=print[12/23/2012 7:18:44 AM]
Poor Students Struggle as Class Plays a Greater Role in Success - NYTimes.com
Lady.”
Home was an apartment in a subdivided house, with relatives in the adjacent units. Family meals and
family feuds went hand in hand. One of Angelica’s uncles bore scars from his days in a street gang. Her
grandmother spoke little English. With a quirky mix of distance and devotion, Angelica studied German
instead of Spanish and gave the fiesta celebrating her 15th birthday a Goth theme, with fairies and dragons
on the tabletop globes. “Korn chick,” she fancifully called herself, after the dissonant metal band.
But school was all business. “Academics was where I shined,” she said. Her grandmother and aunts worked
at Walmart alongside Mrs. Lady, and Angelica was rankled equally by how little money they made and how
little respect they got. Upward Bound asked her to rank the importance of college on a scale of 1 to 10.
“10,” she wrote.
Melissa also wanted to get off the island — and more immediately out of her house. “When I was about 7,
my mom began dating and hanging around a bunch of drunks,” she wrote on the Upward Bound
application. For her mother, addiction to painkillers and severe depression followed. Her grandparents
offered her one refuge, and school offered another.
“I like to learn — I’m weird,” she said.
By eighth grade, Melissa was at the top of her class and sampling a course at a private high school. She
yearned to apply there but swore the opposite to her mother and grandparents. Protecting families from
their own ambition is a skill many poor students learn. “I knew we didn’t have the money,” Melissa said. “I
felt like I had no right to ask.”
New to Upward Bound, Melissa noticed that one student always ate alone and crowded in beside her. “She
forced her friendship on me,” Angelica said.
Bianca joined the following year with a cheerfulness that disguised any trace of family tragedy. As the eldest
of four siblings, she had spent the years since her father’s death as a backup mother. To Bianca, family
meant everything.
She arrived just in time for the trip at the heart of triplets lore — the Upward Bound visit to Chicago. While
they had known they wanted more than Galveston offered, somewhere between the Sears Tower and
Northwestern University they glimpsed what it might be. The trip at once consecrated a friendship and
defined it around shared goals.
“We wanted to do something better with our lives,” Angelica said.
Ball High was hard on goals. In addition to Bosco, a drug-sniffing dog profiled in the local paper, the
campus had four safety officers to deter fights. A pepper spray incident in the girls’ senior year sent 50
students to the school nurse. Only 2 percent of Texas high schools were ranked “academically
unacceptable.” Ball was among them.
http://www.nytimes.com/.../23/education/poor-students-struggle-as-class-plays-a-greater-role-in-success.html?hp&_r=0&pagewanted=print[12/23/2012 7:18:44 AM]
Poor Students Struggle as Class Plays a Greater Role in Success - NYTimes.com
Melissa now marvels at what a good parent her mother has become to her younger brother after she
stopped drinking and was treated for her depression. But when she returned from the high school trip to
Chicago, the conflicts grew so intense that Miss G. took her in one night. “I really put her through a lot,”
said Melissa’s mother, Pam Craft. “Everything she did, she did on her own — I’m so proud of her.” Miss G.’s
notes variously observed that “there are limited groceries,” “student is overwhelmed” and “she’s basically
raising herself.”
While faulting her mother’s choices in men, Melissa made a troubling choice of her own with her
ambitionless boyfriend. Among the many ways he let her down was getting another girl pregnant. Yet as
many times as they broke up, they got back together again. “He is going to bring her down,” Miss G.
warned.
Despite the turmoil, Melissa earned “commended” marks, the highest level, on half her state skills tests,
edited the yearbook and published two opinion articles in the Galveston newspaper, one of them about her
brother’s struggle with autism. Working three jobs, she missed so much school that she nearly failed to
graduate, but she still finished in the top quarter of her class. It was never clear which would prevail — her
habit of courting disaster or her talent for narrow escapes.
Returning from Chicago, Bianca jumped a grade, which allowed her to graduate with Melissa and Angelica.
Angelica kept making A’s on her way to a four-year grade-point average of 3.9. “Amazingly bright and
dedicated,” one instructor wrote. A score of 1,240 on the math and reading portions of her SAT ranked her
at the 84th percentile nationwide. When the German teacher suddenly quit, the school tapped her to finish
teaching the first-year course.
Outside school, Angelica’s life revolved around her boyfriend, Fred Weaver, who was three years older and
drove a yellow Sting Ray. Fred was devoted — too devoted, Mrs. Lady thought, and she warned Angelica not
to let the relationship keep her from going to college. Fred’s father owned a local furniture store, and
everyone could see that Fred’s dream was to run it with Angelica at his side.
Senior year raced by, with Miss G. doing her best to steer frightened and distracted students though the
college selection process. Despite all the campus visits, choices were made without the intense supervision
that many affluent students enjoy. Bianca, anchored to the island by family and an older boyfriend, chose
community college. Melissa picked Texas State in San Marcos because “the application was easiest.”
Angelica had thought of little beyond Northwestern and was crestfallen when she was rejected. She had sent
a last-minute application to a school in Atlanta that had e-mailed her. Only after getting in did she discover
that she had achieved something special.
Emory cost nearly $50,000 that year, but it was one of a small tier of top schools that promised to meet the
financial needs of any student good enough to be admitted. It had even started a program to relieve the
neediest students of high debt burdens. “No one should have to give up their goals and dreams because
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financial challenges stand in the way,” its Web site says.
Plus an unseen campus a thousand miles away had an innate appeal. “How many times do you get the
chance to completely reinvent yourself?” Angelica said.
Rich-Poor Gap Grows
If Melissa and Angelica felt that heading off to university set them apart from other low-income students,
they were right. Fewer than 30 percent of students in the bottom quarter of incomes even enroll in a fouryear school. And among that group, fewer than half graduate.
Income has always shaped academic success, but its importance is growing. Professor Reardon, the
Stanford sociologist, examined a dozen reading and math tests dating back 25 years and found that the gap
in scores of high- and low-income students has grown by 40 percent, even as the difference between blacks
and whites has narrowed.
While race once predicted scores more than class, the opposite now holds. By eighth grade, white students
surpass blacks by an average of three grade levels, while upper-income students are four grades ahead of
low-income counterparts.
“The racial gaps are quite big, but the income gaps are bigger,” Professor Reardon said.
One explanation is simply that the rich have clearly gotten richer. A generation ago, families at the 90th
percentile had five times the income of those at the 10th percentile. Now they have 10 times as much.
But as shop class gave way to computer labs, schools may have also changed in ways that make parental
income and education more important. SAT coaches were once rare, even for families that could afford
them. Now they are part of a vast college preparation industry.
Certainly as the payoff to education has grown — college graduates have greatly widened their earnings lead
— affluent families have invested more in it. They have tripled the amount by which they outspend lowincome families on enrichment activities like sports, music lessons and summer camps, according to
Professor Duncan and Prof. Richard Murnane of Harvard.
In addition, upper-income parents, especially fathers, have increased their child-rearing time, while the
presence of fathers in low-income homes has declined. Miss G. said there is a reason the triplets relied so
heavily on boyfriends: “Their fathers weren’t there.”
Annette Lareau, a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania, argues that the affluent also enjoy an
advocacy edge: parents are quicker to intervene when their children need help, while low-income families
often feel intimidated and defer to school officials, a problem that would trail Melissa and Angelica in their
journey through college.
“Middle-class students get the sense the institution will respond to them,” Professor Lareau said. “Working-
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class and poor students don’t experience that. It makes them more vulnerable.”
Matthew M. Chingos of the Brookings Institution has found that low-income students finish college less
often than affluent peers even when they outscore them on skills tests. Only 26 percent of eight-graders
with below-average incomes but above-average scores go on to earn bachelor’s degrees, compared with 30
percent of students with subpar performances but more money.
“These are students who have already overcome significant obstacles to score above average on this test,”
Mr. Chingos said. “To see how few earn college degrees is really disturbing.”
Triplets Start College
Melissa lasted at Texas State for all of two hours. As soon as she arrived, her car battery died, prompting a
tearful call to Miss. G., who arranged a jump. Her dorm mates had parents to haul boxes and hover.
Melissa unpacked alone. With four days left until classes began, she panicked and drove 200 miles back
home.
For all the talk of getting away, her tattoo featured a local boast: she was “B.O.I.” — born on the island. Her
grandparents ordered her back to school. “I really didn’t want to leave” the island, she said.
Midway through the semester she decided she had made a mistake by going to Texas State. She had picked
the wrong time to leave home. She would move back to Galveston, join Bianca at community college and
transfer to a four-year school later. But when she tried to return the financial aid to Texas State, she
discovered it was too late. A long walk across the hilly campus led to an epiphany.
“I realized there was nothing in Galveston for me,” she said. “This is where I need to be.”
Angelica had a costlier setback. For an elite school, Emory enrolls an unusually large number of low-income
students — 22 percent get Pell grants, compared with 11 percent at Harvard — and gives them unusually
large aid packages. But Angelica had failed to complete all the financial aid forms.
Slow to consider Emory, she got a late start on the complex process and was delayed by questions about her
father, whom she did not even know how to reach. Though Emory sent weekly e-mails — 17 of them, along
with an invitation to a program for minority students — they went to a school account she had not learned
to check. From the start, the wires were crossed.
As classes approached, she just got in the car with Mrs. Lady and Fred and drove 14 hours to Atlanta
hoping to work things out. But by then Emory had distributed all of its aid. Even with federal loans and
grants, Angelica was $40,000 short. The only way to enroll was to borrow from a bank.
Forty thousand dollars was an unfathomable sum. Angelica did not tell Mrs. Lady, to protect her from the
worry. She needed a co-signer, and the only person she could ask was Fred. That would bind her future to
her past, but she feared that if she tried to defer, she might not have a future — she might never make it
back.
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“I was like, ‘I don’t care what kind of debt it puts me in — I’ve got to get this done,”‘ she said.
Fred answered her request with his. They got engaged.
A few weeks later, Hurricane Ike hit Galveston, with Katrina-like consequences. About a sixth of the
population never returned. Mrs. Lady lost her apartment and much of what she owned. Fred, consumed
with rebuilding the store, reduced the modest sums he had promised to send Angelica.
Social life was awkward. She often felt she was the only one on campus without a credit card. Her
roommate moved out, with no explanation. But one element of college appealed to Angelica and Melissa
alike: the classes. Other debt-ridden students might wonder why the road to middle-class life passed
through anthropology exams and lectures on art history. But Melissa was happy to ponder tribal life in
Papua New Guinea and Angelica stepped off the 18-hour bus ride home and let slip an appreciative word
about German film.
“My family said ‘O.K., now you go to some big fancy school,’ ” she said.
With A’s, B’s, C’s and D’s, her report card looked like alphabet soup. “I was ready for Galveston College — I
wasn’t ready for Emory,” Angelica said. But she salvaged a 2.6 GPA and went home for the summer happy.
“I thought the hard part was over,” she said.
At the end of the summer, Angelica and Melissa marked their ascent as college women with the perfect road
trip. Melissa had decided to become a speech therapist. Angelica would practice child psychology.
Somewhere between the rainbow in Louisiana and the blues bar in Orlando, they talked of launching a
practice to help poor children. Fortune smiled all week.
“We were where we should be and we had the world at our feet,” Melissa said.
Melissa
She returned to a campus that was starting to feel like home. She had a roommate she liked and a job she
loved, as a clerk in a Disney store. But despite the feeling of deep change — or perhaps because of it — she
got back together with her high-school boyfriend. “That was one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done,” she
said.
In the middle of Melissa’s sophomore year they became engaged. He moved near the campus to live with
her, and Melissa charged most of their expenses on her credit cards. He was enrolling in the Job Corps
program, and they agreed they would pay down the bills together after he became an electrician.
Melissa hit an academic pothole — a C in a communications course, which kept her out of the competitive
speech therapy program. But she decided to aim for graduate-school training, and her other grades soared,
placing her on the dean’s list both semesters her junior year. When her mother made a rare campus visit,
Melissa hurried to show her the prominent display on the student center wall.
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“That was one of the proudest moments of my life,” Melissa said.
Just before her senior year, Melissa planned a trip to celebrate her 21st birthday. Preparing to leave, she
discovered her money was missing. Only one person had her bank code. After finishing Job Corps, her
boyfriend was jobless once again and acting odd — as if he were using drugs.
No one but Melissa was surprised. Although she returned the engagement ring, she could not return the
$4,000 in credit card debt he had promised to help pay. With her finances and emotions in disarray, she
started her senior year so depressed she hung up black curtains so she could sleep all day. She skipped
class, doubled her work hours, and failed nearly every course.
“I started partying, and I was working all the time because I had this debt,” she said.
If the speed of her decline stands out, so does her lack of a safety net. It is easy to imagine a more affluent
family stepping in with money or other support. Miss G. sent her the names of some campus therapists but
Melissa did not call. She waited for an internal bungee cord to break the fall. She came within one F of
losing her financial aid, then aced last summer’s classes.
She is now a fifth-year senior, on track to graduate next summer, and her new boyfriend is studying to be
an engineer. At home, she had a way of finding the wrong people. “I haven’t found any wrong people out
here,” she said.
With more than $44,000 in loans, she can expect to pay $250 a month for the next quarter century, on top
of whatever she may borrow for graduate school. She hides the notices in a drawer and harbors no regrets.
“Education — you can’t put a price on it,” she said. “No matter what happens in your life, they can’t take
your education away.”
Bianca
Bianca missed the Florida road trip, though no one remembers why. She liked to talk of getting away, until
it came time to go.
Among the perils that low-income students face is “under-matching,” choosing a close or familiar school
instead of the best they can attend.
“The more selective the institution is, the more likely kids are to graduate,” said Mr. Chingos, the
Brookings researcher. “There are higher expectations, more resources and more stigma to dropping out.”
Bianca was under-matched. She was living at home, dating her high-school boyfriend and taking classes at
Galveston College. A semester on the honor roll only kept her from sensing the drift away from her plan to
transfer to a four-year school.
Her grandfather’s cancer, and chemotherapy treatments, offered more reasons to stay. She had lived with
him since her father had died. Leaving felt like betrayal. “I thought it was more important to be at home
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than to be selfish and be at school,” she said.
The idea that education can be “selfish” — a belief largely alien among the upper-middle class — is one poor
students often confront, even if it remains unspoken. “Family is such a priority, especially when you’re a
Hispanic female,” Miss G. said. “You’re afraid you’re going to hear, ‘You’re leaving us, you think you’re
better.’ ”
In her second year of community college, Bianca was admitted to a state university a hundred miles away.
Miss. G. and her mother urged her to go. Her mind raced with reasons to wait.
“I didn’t want to leave and have my grandfather die.”
“I had to help my mom.”
“I think I got burned out.”
Bianca stayed in Galveston, finished her associate degree, and now works as a beach-bar cashier and a spa
receptionist. She still plans to get a bachelor’s degree, someday.
“I don’t think I was lazy. I think I was scared,” she said. In the meantime, “life happened.”
Angelica
After the financial aid disaster in her first year, Angelica met the next deadline and returned as a
sophomore with significant support. Still, she sensed she was on shakier ground than other low-income
students and never understood why. The answer is buried in the aid archives: Emory repeatedly inflated
her family’s income without telling her.
Angelica reported that her mother made $35,000 a year and paid about half of that in rent. With her
housing costs so high, Emory assumed the family had extra money and assigned Mrs. Lady an income of
$51,000. But Mrs. Lady was not hiding money. She was paying inflated post-hurricane rent with the help of
Federal disaster aid, a detail Angelica had inadvertently omitted.
By counting money the family did not have, Emory not only increased the amount it expected Angelica to
pay in addition to her financial aid. It also disqualified her from most of the school’s touted program of
debt relief. Under the Emory Advantage plan the school replaces loans with grants for families making less
than $50,000 a year. Moving Angelica just over the threshold placed her in a less-generous tier and forced
her to borrow an additional $15,000 before she could qualify. The mistake will add years to her repayment
plan.
She discovered what had happened only recently, after allowing a reporter to review her file with Emory
officials. “There was no other income coming in,” she said. “I can’t believe that they would do that and not
say anything to us. That seems completely unfair.”
Emory officials said they had to rely on the information Angelica provided and that they will not make
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retroactive adjustments.
“The method that was used in her case was very standard methodology,” said J. Lynn Zimmerman, the
senior vice provost who oversees financial aid. “I think that what’s unusual is that she really didn’t advocate
for herself or ask for any kind of review. If she or her mother would have provided any additional
information it would have triggered a conversation.”
Unaware she had any basis for complaint, Angelica found a campus job she loved, repairing library books.
It was solitary and artistic work, and it attracted a small sisterhood of women who appreciated her
grandmother’s tamales and her streak of purple hair. One day her boss, Julie Newton, overheard her
excitedly talking about Hegel.
“She was an extremely intelligent woman and an unusual one,” she said.
Yet even as Angelica’s work hours grew, so did the rigor of her coursework. Meetings with faculty advisers
were optional and Angelica did not consult hers. When it came time to declare a major, she had a B-plus
average in the humanities and D’s in psychology. She chose psychology.
By the end of her second year, she felt exhausted and had grades to show it. Her long-distance love life was
exhausted, too, and she briefly broke up with Fred. She went home for the summer to work at Target and
dragged herself back to a troubled junior year.
She moved off campus to save money but found herself spending even more. “I would sit and debate
whether I could buy a head of lettuce,” she said. Fred was no longer helping, and her relationship with him
snapped. That he had backed a $40,000 loan only made the split harder. They had been together since she
was 15.
“It was days of back and forth, crying,” she said.
This was no time to tackle Psychology 200, a course on research methods required of majors. The devotion
of the professor, Nancy Bliwise, had earned her a campus teaching award. But her exacting standards and
brusque manner left student opinion divided.
“Quite possibly the greatest professor at Emory,” wrote one contributor to the Web site Rate My Professor.
Others found her “condescending,” “horribly disrespectful,” and “plain out mean.”
Midway through the semester, Angelica just stopped coming to class. Professor Bliwise called her in and
found her despondent. “She was emotionless and that scared me,” the professor said in an interview.
Angelica said she had to work too much to keep up, but could not drop the course without losing her fulltime status and her aid. So she planned to take an “F.”
Alarmed, Professor Bliwise raised other options, then asked — empathetically, the professor thought — if
Angelica had considered cheaper schools. She herself had worked her way through Cleveland State then
earned a doctorate at the University of Chicago.
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Angelica sat stone-faced, burning. All she could hear was someone saying she was too poor for Emory. “It
was pretty clear if I couldn’t afford to be there, I shouldn’t waste her time,” she said.
That was the beginning of the end. Angelica failed that course and three others her junior year, as her
upside-down circumstances left her cheating a $200,000 education for a $9-an-hour job. She was not one
to make it easy, but Emory never found a way to intervene. “Is there a way to reach out to her?” Professor
Bliwise asked in an e-mail to the dean’s office.
The dean’s office left messages. Angelica acknowledged that she was slow to respond but said she got no
answer when she did. The school did an electronic key card check to verify whether she was still on
campus. More professors expressed concerns. “Personal issues are interfering with her ability to
concentrate,” one warned. Angelica contacted campus counseling but said all the appointments had been
taken.
Emory can hardly be cast as indifferent to low-income students. It spends $94 million a year of its own
money on financial aid and graduates its poorest students nearly as often as the rest. Its failure to reach
Angelica may have come up short, but that is partly a measure of the sheer distance it was trying to bridge.
When Angelica finally found a way to express herself, she did so silently. Her final piece for a sculpture
class was a papier-mâché baby, sprouting needles like a porcupine. No one could mistake the statement of
her own vulnerability.
“It was a shocking piece,” said her professor, Linda Armstrong. “She had a way of using art to tap into her
deepest emotions and feelings. I don’t think she understood how good she was.”
Angelica spent the next summer waiting for an expulsion letter that never came. Another missed deadline
cost her several thousand dollars in aid in her senior year, and Emory mistakenly concluded that Mrs. Lady
had made a $70,000 down payment on a house. (In describing the complicated transaction with a
nonprofit group, Angelica failed to note that most of the money came from a program for first-time home
buyers.) Emory officials said the mistake did not affect her aid, but the difference between the school’s costs
and her package of loans and grants swelled to $12,000 — a sum she could not possibly meet.
She skipped more classes and worked longer hours.
“I felt, I’m going to be on academic probation anyway, I might as well work and pay my rent until they
suspend me.”
Finally, Emory did — forcing her to take a semester away with the option of reapplying.
The tale could be cast as an elite school failing a needy student or a student unwilling to be helped, but
neither explanation does justice to an issue as complicated as higher education and class.
“It’s a little of both,” said Joanne Brzinski, a dean who oversees academic advising. “We reached out to her,
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but she didn’t respond. I always fault myself when students don’t do as well as we’d like them to.”
“It’s such a sad story,” she added. “She had the ability.”
Ms. Newton, Angelica’s former supervisor at the library, wondered if her conflict went beyond money, to a
fear of the very success she sought. “I wouldn’t go as far as to say she was committing self-sabotage, but the
thought crossed my mind,” she said. “For someone so connected to family and Grandma and the tamales, I
wondered if she feared that graduating would alienate her.”
A long bridge crosses the bay to Galveston Island. Angelica returned a year ago the way she had left, with
Mrs. Lady and Fred at her side. She is $61,000 in debt, seeing Fred again, and making $8.50 an hour at his
family’s furniture store. No one can tell whether she is settling down or gathering strength for another
escape.
A dinner with Melissa and Bianca a while back offered the comfort of friends who demand no explanations.
Melissa suggested they all enroll at Texas State. But Bianca does not know what to study, and Angelica said
that she had gone too far to surrender all hopes of an Emory degree.
“I could have done some things better, and Emory could have done some things better,” she said. “But I
don’t blame either one of us. Everyone knows life is unfair — being low-income puts you at a disadvantage.
I just didn’t understand the extent of the obstacles I was going to have to overcome.”
Kitty Bennett contributed research.
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