By Kiera Janzen
In the Minnesota Public Radio article, "Minneapolis South High School student brawl involves hundreds", the author begins by outlining the four W's (who, what, when, and where) in the lead and the sentence following the lead. In the rest of the story, the reporter summarizes the important details of the event in a general inverted pyramid structure.
The nut graf, which comes after the first two sentences in this story, adds more details about the brawl, including speculation from students about why the fight occurred and a statement from the Minneapolis police spokesman about what happened. In the paragraphs that follow, the author summarizes injuries that were suffered as a result of the fight, how the police intervened, how the school handled it, and reactions (including quotes) from school officials and students.
The reporter's organization of the story is effective because it draws the reader in with a piece of interesting information in the lead ("a food fight spun out of control"), and then includes the rest of the important details, interspersed with relevant quotes from individuals involved in the fight.
One thing that the reporter could have done differently is to include an intriguing or striking quote at the end of the story to serve as the kicker. Instead of doing this, the author ended the article with information about the police investigation of the brawl.
Nice work on the blog.