Profile Piece

Native American Times wrote an excellent story on Ron Cooper. It starts with a quick hook, and and a short nut graf. Following is a long quote that explains why he is doing what he is doing. There are a lot of quotes and history incorporated throughout the story and ends nicely with a quote from his wife.

Closest Thing To A Slice-Of-Life Story.

I scoured the Register Guard. I searched the Oregonian. I got desperate, so I even googled and yahooed the words “slice of life” and “newspaper”. Nothing. Not even Wikipedia had a smattering of a trail to follow. Then I started aimlessly blog hopping, starting with random Oregonian writers. Technically… I don’t know if what I found fits into the guidelines for a slice story, but it is the closest thing I’ve found and so I decided something was better than nothing.
Brooklyn Tweed posted a blog about shelter, a specific kind of yarn and how it is dyed. It’s a very specific article, on just the dying process which would typically be boring, except for the fantastic photos. Tweed gives good analogies, such as “the process is like mixing paint colors,” and “wool confetti.” The lede was not as interesting as it could have been, but the photo that followed acted as part of the lede (since the nut graf was hidden on the computer screen until I scrolled down). When I saw the photo I understood that the author was talking about: yarn! The following paragraph then explains exactly what shelter is. Typically, this doesn’t follow the “fly on the wall” stance that traditional stories follow (the article is first person), and it does border on the line of a “how to”, but at least it’s not a profile piece, nor take the issue much larger. It stays well honed, and offers room for future related articles.

Academic Journal1

Summary: Cross cultural communication, linguistic differences, and the inability of teachers to understand cultural relevance makes learning difficult for children who are multicultural.

Topic: Leave No Child Behind
Category: Academic Research
What is it? Academic Journal
Title: Multicultural Special Education: Effective Intervention for Today’s Schools
Publication Information: Intervention in School & Clinic, Jan2007, Vol. 42 Issue 3, p148-155, 8p, 3 illustrations; (AN 23438014)
Author: Obiakor, Festus E.

Location: Print Journal
Accessed: March 12, 2009

Support:
National Center for Education Statistics, 2001, found unequal statistics
United States Department of Education, 2001, found unequal statistics
Education for All Handicapped Children of 1975, mandates teachers to intervene
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1990, 1997, mandates teachers to intervene
H. Grossman, thinks teachers treat minorities more harshly than their peers

These sources represent acts, statistics, and people who are in support of minority students. Two laws require educators to intervene before mandated testings, statistics have proven more multicultural children are placed in specialized programming, and researchers have found teachers treat minorities different than their peers.

Source Analysis:
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is a research and academic campus. Researchers that have a focus on impacting economic development are able to find grants for research projects.

Audience and Agenda:
This site has about 51, 453 viewers. They tend to be young, Asian, males who has children. They are more affluent, and are college graduates.

Usefulness:
This article mentions that there is a high percentage of minorities who are placed in special education because of teachers disability to understand multicultural learners. Since some teachers may not realize they are emphasizing weaknesses in multicultural learners and are labeling them as special education when they are really average learners. There is a reason why minorities are more likely to drop out of public school. If children are not challenged in their coursework because they were placed in a special education program then it is understandable that there is a division among students. This source is also important because for schools to be successful and for the the benefit of all students multicultural education needs to be included as part of the curriculum.

Works Cited:
http://www4.uwm.edu/about_uwm/
http://www.graduateschool.uwm.edu/research/
http://graduateschool.uwm.edu/research/researcher-central/grants-101/
http://www.quantcast.com/www4.uwm.edu