This last week my blogging and commentary student Austin Koeller wrote a state editorial I was pretty happy with. He argued that U.S. Senator Deb Fischer was betraying her conservative supporters in north central Nebraska by supporting construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. Austin argued not that the pipeline itself was bad, but rather that it was wrong for a conservative senator to support the state helping a foreign oil company take land for the pipelines construction through the use of eminent domain. His editorial got shared by the progressive activist group Bold Nebraska, and the link to his posting of it has now been shared on Facebook more than 1,000 times. That’s how you know your writing has struck a nerve.
But Austin isn’t the only student in my class doing some interesting writing. Here are links to several recent blog posts worth your time from my class:
- Alison Buchli – Too young to be sad about being single
Taking a thoughtful look at singleness on Valentine’s Day. - Kirsty Dunbar – Embarrassing story time
It’s easy to tell stories where we are the hero. Much harder to tell the ones where we are not. - Alyssa Sobotka – Corrupt Christianity
Talking about faith from a position of certainty is not an easy thing to do. But talking about it from a position of confusion is much, much harder. - Courtney (Wagner) McClellen – Can We Save a Life?
I’ve seen a couple of good editorials about the Nebraska’s proposed Good Samaritan Law to protect young people seeking help for a friend who has had dangerous amounts to drink. But I particularly like Courtney’s version because she makes such good use of storytelling to make her argument.
And finally, this isn’t from my class, but what a great editorial from the Frederick News-Post on “Kirby Delauter.“