1. The topic of this piece struck me as something I often struggle with: choice. The Paralyzing Problem of Too Many Choices is an interesting read from the NYT. What do you think about the stye and structure of this piece? Is there a healthy balance between sources and research? What are your thoughts on this topic? At MA, how might too many choices be a bad thing? In what areas do students have too many choices? too few?
2. The Greatest Moment in Women's Sports: From ESPN magazine and famed writer Rick Reilly, this piece is about exactly what the title claims. But there's one little thing: the greatest moment in women's sport came when a woman beat all the men. Reilly has a solid style and structure, and clearly knows his sport stuff. What do you think of the topic of this piece? What about Reilly's opinion? At MA, is there a greatest moment we've missed reporting on? Some experience, some moment, some something we need to expose?
6 comments:
The Paralyzing Problem of Too Many Choices:
I found this article very interesting, and easy to relate to. It is often difficult to make choices, informed or random, if there are a great number of options to choose from. If we were able to do an article like this, it would be easiest to look at minicourse choices, or elective options for juniors and seniors. We could talk to students and ask what affects which electives they choose, especially around the time of scheduling.
forgot to sign my post -Elizabeth
The Paralyzing Problem of Too Many Choices:
I like the author used the experiment and statistics regarding the choices of jam. Maybe a common theme we could implement into the MA voice is just taking polls about recent events and elaborating what these results mean. In a 5 day week how many times do students eat on campus or go off campus? People love statistics and I just think using a form of this article and actually explaining the results would be a great addition to the Voice
Also I like how the author didn't make the experiment or the statistics seem complicated. I liked how he cut to the chase, told us the experiment, and explained the results.
Katie Eiseman said...
Too Many Choices
I liked the tone of this article a lot. The way the author opens the article with the anecdote about his son is easily relatable. The way the article moves through the other examples (the jams) kept my attention. I think that this topic is so so relevant to the MA community. We are faced with so many choices every single day -- where to go during break, what to have for lunch, what classes to take etc. I think we could take this article and write an op-ed piece about these issues. Would it be better if we had a set curriculum or only one choice in the cafeteria? Would it be better if we, like Mary talked about today, were a part of the 80% of Americans who have only one college choice rather than the everlasting spread sheet of universities and colleges? Definitely applicable!
Greatest Woman's Athletic Accomplishment
I did not like this article at all. The problem for me was the number of gender stereotypes that are portrayed and therefore continued. I think that there is an interesting point that could be made and I like the fact that she was not made out to be some huge deal because she beat the boys. I think it is nice that she won and nice she is being recognized but I do not like the way it was presented. I think we can be more aware of the tone we use in some of our articles in adjectives and transitional words.
The Paralyzing Problem of Too Many Choices:
Like many people have said, I really enjoyed the easy, flowing, and uncomplicated style of this piece. Tugend did a good job of incorporating a variety of sources along with statistics to keep it really interesting and engaging. Unlike the author, however, I really like the wide variety of choices we have at MA; without these choices I think our community would be much less unique.
As for a tie in to MA, I want to second Eric's idea of having polls and posting the results in the paper. Also I think we could compare the choices (classes wise) that we get at MA, versus those of public school, or much bigger high school. It'd be cool to see where we stack up on the choices scale.
The Paralyzing Problem of Too Many Choices:
The simplistic statistics that this piece offered were quick but interesting to read. I was especially drawn to the research having to do with "pulling the plug" on loved ones in America versus in France. I think this would be an interesting topic to delve deeper into for our paper; we could write a piece about how America does things (such as choosing to pull the plug or not) and how this differs from other countries. If we also added the aftermath of these decisions I think the piece would draw a lot of attention from readers. To make this even more MA oriented, we could match up how people at MA do things versus other high schools in other parts of the country, and how doing these things affects us mentally and emotionally.
At times I thought the piece was a bit dry (statistics can get boring), but the concepts that the piece offered intrigued me. Also, the opening was personal which made me feel more connected to Tugend. When she described her son, it made the article relevant to me because I have a hard time decision making as well. Overall, the piece included interesting information that I had never looked at from Tugend's point of view before.
Post a Comment