1st Place, Alternative Story Form
2022-23, Division 3, News Writing
By Lauren Applegate, Lucas Berg & Eric White
Focus
Midland HS
Problematic Parents
Students are paying $50 (an absurdly high price) to get a spot. Tell us, why do we have to be late to school because a parent is in our spots? When students already have a long walk and then on top of that have to wait for a parent to get out of their spot is unfair. The student parking lot is too congested to have extra people take up space who aren’t even supposed to be there in the first place. This is making the parking lot a breeding ground for accidents waiting to happen.
Demon Drivers
Every day when I pull into the parking lot, there is some driver who thinks
it would be fun to drive fast down the parking lot- sometimes almost hitting me while I am pulling in. It’s even gotten to the point where last year, I had to start reporting drivers once a weekby either finding their parking spot or taking their license plate.
Eric
Depending on the time of day, we could potentially see a corpse fly through the air in the Midland High parking lot. (Yes, this is an exaggeration). Someone running late to school zooms through the parking lot hitting someone walking in, which is bound to happen. During lunch, lots of people walk to their cars, and two friends racing to McDonald’s is quite a problem to all those walking to their own cars for lunch.
Lucas
Blind Backups
I tend to wait about ten to fifteen minutes after the bell to head out, or even leave after seventh hour. The few times I do need to leave right away, there tends to be a car that comes out of the middle of nowhere and they come fast. They get mad, as if their reckless driving is my fault.
Eric
To be fair, I may have backed into someone during a fateful Monday morning last year. I’m not perfect, I’ll admit it. I quickly looked both ways, it was dark, and someone quickly went past my field of vision. Don’t worry, it was only a love tap. In general, so many hazardous situations have already occurred here.
Lauren
Sporadic Spots
I blame my horrid park jobs everyday on low visibility. This is just my excuse, yes, but to be fair I can’t see my spot number. Everyday I have to park based on the cars around me (they’re usually not there yet), so sometimes it’s a guess. It’s early in the morning, I’m usually running late, so I just don’t care. I apologize to the black truck to my left, and the gray car to my right.
Lauren
I’m quite lucky that every day the two cars next to mine are there before me. But the
few days that I have gotten there first, I have slowed down to a crawl and hope to make out the numbers before I pass my spot. The numbers aren’t visible at all, and it doesn’t help that the numbers that are clear get covered by the cars that park in those spots either.
Lucas
Parental Advice
“Follow the flow as designed, I would encourage them (parents) to maybe take an extra couple of minutes to do so themselves because by not doing so is dangerous when everybody’s trying to get to school.”
Eric Albright
Athletic Director, Assistant Principal
NW-18. Alternative Story Form
An ASF consists of a whole story told in an alternative way. It can consist of anything that is not a traditional story form. Key features include: visual destinations, strong use of typography, easy to scan, well organized, can provide quick facts and deep context. It should not include traditional narrative. Examples include (but are not limited to) fast-fact boxes, lists, glossaries, quizzes, polls, charts. An ASF submitted in this category should not be connected to a story or be part of a story package. It should stand alone. Note: A story submitted in this category may NOT also be submitted in ND-06: Story Package. Submit a PDF of the print page(s) on which the ASF was published or the URL to the ASF on an online news site.
JUDGING CRITERIA
- Should be a story told in a unique, alternative way
- This is not a traditional story as in inverted pyramid, news, anecdotal, analysis or feature narrative
- Story is told with quick facts—it’s a quick read that provides readers with a unique approach to a story
- While the read is quick, ASF should provide the reader with complete information. Readers should not be left asking questions
- Organization is such that story is easy to follow and logical, even though it’s in an alternative way
- ASF is visually engrossing, bringing readers in through strong use of typography and other types of visuals
- Should not be packaged with another story or part of another story.
- Stands totally alone as a storytelling device
- Submission only considered if submitted with entire page on which it was featured