This story activity caught my eye because it appeared in the blog The South Jersey Line, and South Jersey is where I grew up. The South Jersey Line is by journalism professor Mark Berkey-Gerard, and it serves as a resource for students enrolled in his Online Journalism I course at Rowan University (which was Glassboro University — College? — in my day). The idea, outlined here, is to compare five (or any number presumably) online journalism stories — Berkey-Gerard calls them “Web-based projects” — on a similar theme and then ask yourself (or a group engaging in this activity):

• Which story affected you most?
• Which story affected you the least?
• Why?

The theme Berkey-Gerard used was “lasting love,” and the stories were about couples who had been together for a long time.

Cool idea for looking at various ways media present similar themes and what constitutes the most affecting storytelling.