Facts, Quotes, Summaries, and Paraphrases
Read the following articles and following the instructions for each article. You may use any of the notes that I have given you. Make sure that you read the directions for each article.
Facts
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- Find three facts
- Write the facts on your own paper and parenthetically cite each fact. (Hint: this article does NOT have an author)
Baseball Almanac
The greatest test of baseball’s resilience followed its lowest moment since the Black Sox scandal. More than a few pundits predicted the sports’ demise for good after the 1994 World Series was cancelled. It was baseball’s fourth work stoppage in 20 years and many thought fans wouldn’t return. One only needs to check attendance figures since to see the sport not only rebounded, but has a stronger grip on fans than ever.
Baseball endures because of its historical reference points, and Baseball Almanac has dedicated itself to preserving the history of our national pastime. The website has rapidly grown into an interactive baseball encyclopedia filled with more than 500,000 pages of in-depth baseball facts, original baseball research and baseball statistics not found anywhere on the Internet. Repeatedly recognized as THE online source for baseball related information, Baseball Almanac has something for everyone.
Quotes
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- Write the three quotes on your own paper. Make sure you parenthetically cite each quote that you use.
Amelia Earhart
Aviatrix Lost Over the Pacific
By Stephen Sherman, Sept. 26, 2012.
The world's most famous female aviator disappeared in 1937, as she attempted to become the first woman to fly around the world. With her navigator, Fred Noonan, her Lockheed Electra was last heard from about 100 miles from the tiny Pacific atoll, Howland Island, on July 2, 1937. President Roosevelt authorized an immediate search; no trace was ever found; notwithstanding the endless efforts by conspiracy theorists to find evidence that she landed on an island.
Over the years, the disappearance of Amelia Earhart has spawned almost as many conspiracy theories as the LindberghKidnapping and the Kennedy Assassination.
She achieved a number of aviation records:
- the first woman to fly across the Atlantic, in 1928
- the second person to fly solo across the Atlantic, in 1932
- the first person to solo from Hawaii to California, in 1935
Guided by her publicist and husband, George Putnam, she made headlines in the era when aviation gripped the public's imagination.
Childhood and Education
Amelia Earhart was born on July 24, 1897 in Kansas, the daughter of Edwin and Amy Earhart. At the age of three, she was sent to live with her grandmother (her namesake), mainly because the old woman needed company and a distraction from the deaths of her mother, her son, and her daughter-in-law, as well as the poor mental condition of her husband Alfred. The grandparents (or grandmother) raised Amelia during her early childhood. She liked their home in Atchison, Kansas, especially her large bedroom with views of the nearby river, now a museum open to the public. She enjoyed her life with her grandparents: learning to read at five, and secure in a place where it seemed that almost everyone was family. But her grandmother was timid, and a worrier, and did not approve of Amelia's tomboy tendencies, so Amelia kept her pony-riding, tree-climbing, snow-sledding, and hunting activities to herself. Her parents were only 50 miles away, and she summered with them, so she remained close to them during these years.
Education
When she was seven, her father Edwin took the family to the St. Louis World's Fair, where, on riding the Ferris wheel, she learned that she rather enjoyed heights. She learned to build and make things with her own hands, once making a crude roller coaster out of two-by-fours, a packing box, and roller-skate wheels. She was an avid reader, and even as a child read Harper's Magazine for Young People, and the novels of Dickens and Thackeray. One of her favorite poems was "Atalanta in Calydon" by Algernon Charles Swinburne; it's a poem about a warrior maiden, who hunts and kills a boar with Meleager.
From the first grade, she attended the College Preparatory School in Atchison. It was a tiny place, with only about 30 students, housed in a building that used to be a stable. Amelia was bright, but her independent spirit and lack of interest in recitation did not endear her to the teachers. In high school, cheerleading was not enough for her, she wanted to play on the basketball team.
Like Pappy Boyington, her family circumstances were unsettled, marked by moves and alcoholism in the family. The odd family arrangement (Amelia living with her grandparents in Atchison, her younger sister Muriel with the girls' parents in Kansas City) lasted until Amelia was ten, when she rejoined with her mother and father.
Her father Edwin, was well-educated, but tended to the impractical; money just slipped through his fingers. His in-laws, the Otises, helped him out a lot (including taking care of Amelia), but Edwin's extravagance remained a problem. In 1908, he got a new job, with the Rock Island railroad, which required him to move to Des Moines. Now, the arrangement with the Atchison grandparents was no longer feasible, so Amelia joined them in Iowa, and saw her first airplane, at the 1908 Iowa State Fair. For a few years, Edwin did well, moving into a newer, larger houses almost every year, as his income grew. But his spendthrift nature won out, and he kept living beyond his means, and increasingly turning to alcohol. He moved out for a time, but Amy (Amelia's mother) implored him to return.
The death of Amelia's grandparents, the Otises, was the final blow. The Otises were quite wealthy, with an estate worth over $170,000 (a huge sum in those days). While the will sought to provide for the grandchildren, it excluded Edwin and Amy. A lengthy, messy struggle ensued. During this time, Edwin had lost his job, and was forced to accept a menial position in St. Paul, which required another family move, to Minnesota.
In the 1913-14 school year, at St. Paul Central High School, where Amelia was more in control of her own destiny, she did very well, keeping a grade point average in the high eighties, with a curriculum including Latin, German, and Physics.
In 1916, she matriculated at Ogontz, a highly-regarded women's college, what used to be called a "finishing school," outside of Philadelphia. In her three semesters there, Amelia played field hockey, studied Shakespeare & Latin, and attended concerts of the Philadelphia Symphony. When the United States entered World War One in 1917, Amelia was drawn in and served as a nurse with the Volunteer Aid Detachment (VAD) of St. John Ambulance Brigade.
Summarize
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Teen Driver Menace: Text-Messaging
By
Steve Vogel
on Oct 22, 2007
When it comes to teen driving, put the danger of text-messaging while driving right up there with drunken driving as Public Enemies No. 1 and 1A on the nation's roads.
According to SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions) and Liberty Mutual Insurance Group, instant and text messaging while driving leads the list as the biggest distraction while driving.
The study, released in July 2007 and conducted with more than 900 teens from 26 high schools nationwide, revealed that text-messaging while driving is becoming as dangerous as drinking and driving, in terms of inhibiting a teen’s driving abilities.
Yet even while 37 percent of teens rated text messaging while driving as “extremely” or “very” distracting, they continue to send and receive text messaging in their moving vehicles anyway, the study reported.
Law Enforcement Concerns
Alarmingly, 46 percent of teens admitted that those who drive distracted are text-messaging, according to a AAA study which appeared in Seventeen magazine's August 2007 issue.
"Texting while driving is a serious public health issue," says Ed Smith, a senior analyst with the Delray Beach Police Department in Delray Beach, Florida, in an interview October 12, 2007. "Law enforcement is concerned about how to enforce bans on text-messaging in the car.
"Police are hard pressed to enforce seat beats. They're also concerned about taking those resources away from preventing and solving other serious crimes."
Meanwhile, the crash statistics surrounding distractions in vehicles, such as cellphone use, are growing. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that distracted drivers account for almost 80% of all crashes and 65% of near-crashes in the United States. (April 20, 2006)
While most states have adopted or are adopting legislation around teen driving, the restrictions of teen driving laws vary from state to state.
Teen Driving Guidelines
Based on the extensive research over the past seven years, SADD and Liberty Mutual have set forth a number of guidelines for families – including preventing cell phone use in the car.
Interestingly, 52 percent of teens who say their parents are unlikely to follow through on punishment if they drive and text-message will continue to do -- compared to only 36 percent of teens who believe their parents would penalize them, according to the SADD/Liberty Mutual study.
Not surprisingly, the study also reports the biggest influence on how teens drive is their parents. Almost two-thirds of high school teens say their parents talk on a cell phone while driving; almost half say their parents speed; and almost a third say their parents don't wear a safety belt.
Cellphone Jamming a Solution?
“Certainly parents need to model good driving habits and states need to ban text-messaging if we’re going to prevent some of the horrific traffic accidents we’re seeing out there right now,” says Smith.
“But the most effective way to prevent many of these accidents from happening would be the installation of some kind of cellphone jamming technology in automobiles. Unfortunately, it’s illegal in the U.S. – although lawmakers may be forced to take another look at this if we're going to change the behavior of our teens.”
Paraphrase
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- Write a paraphrase for each excerpt (you should have two)
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Teens Who Use Marijuana May Increase Drug Use in Future Children
By
Brenda Lane
- Animal Study on Teen Marijuana Use
Researchers from the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine (with funding from the NIH) set out to discover whether or not the effect of cannabis on female rats had any effect into the next generation of young.
One experimental group of adolescent rats in the study were given a substance that has a similar affect as marijuana on the brain. They received this drug over a 3 day period at 30 days old (equivalent to the adolescent period.) There was no other exposure to the cannabis-like substance after the initial 3 day treatment. The control group of rats were not exposed to the substance. After both groups of rats matured into adulthood, they were then mated.
- Marijuana Use Among Teens Today
What significance does this study have for parents with teens today? According to the Monitoring the Future survey from 2011 funded by the NIH, about 25 percent of 8th, 10th and 12th graders participating in the study reported using marijuana in the past year. This statistic of marijuana use among teens has risen from 21% in 2007. If pot smoking among teens is indeed on the rise, then this study shows that an increase of drug abuse into the next generation may be one result.
It is also important to bear in mind that while this research is compelling, it is difficult to draw conclusions from any animal study. Humans and animals do not always react in similar ways, nor are they completely alike physiologically. However given that studies of this nature would be impossible as well as unethical to perform on humans, the findings should provide additional education about the possible long-term effects of even limited drug use in teen years on the next generation.