Talk:Educational goals of Sesame Street/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Sarastro1 (talk · contribs) 13:29, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

A pretty good article overall. Just a few questions and prose comments. However, the lead needs a little work as it does not really stand on its own, and could be tricky for the general reader. I will place the article on hold for the moment, but don't foresee any difficulties. Sarastro1 (talk) 13:35, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Sorry it's taken me a few days to get to this; I will address your feedback now and hopefully finish it by the weekend. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 19:40, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Lead

• "Its goals were garnered from formative and summative research": In both the lead and main body, I think this is a bit vague and meaningless. I suspect many readers will be unaware of formative and summative assessment, and it may be worth simplifying for the non-specialists.

Unlike the above, these terms are defined in the article. Since the lead's purpose is to summarize the article, is it necessary to define them here?

• "Goals" is overused in the lead.

Removed excess usages.

• "They made changes in the show's contents": Content or contents?

Oops: content. Fixed, thanks for the catch.

• "After Sesame Street's first season, its critics forced its producers and researchers to address affective goals more overtly": Why? Again, needs stating in the lead.

I'm not sure that's something that can easily be summarized, so I solved the problem by removing the reference to critics, simply stating that these goals were addressed after the first season.

• "through a series of programs that first focused on promotion, and then after the first season, on the development of educational materials used in preschool settings": I don't quite follow. How did the program promote and develop educational materials within schools?

I'm not sure what you're asking for, other than for clarification. I revamped this sentence so that it's hopefully clearer now.

• "Innovative programs were developed because their target audience, children and their families in low-income, inner-city homes, did not traditionally watch educational programs on television and because traditional methods of promotion and advertising were not effective with these groups": Repetition of "programs" and "traditional"; also innovation within the show would not be effective if the target audience were not watching, so I think this is jumbled. Were "innovative" methods of promotion used? This is implied but should be explicitly stated. If not, how could the target audience be reached?

My previous revamping helps it be less jumbled. I continued this by removing "traditionally" and rewriting it. Please let me know if I've done enough. Thanks thus far, will continue later. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 20:56, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Purpose of goals

• "formative and summative research": Without replicating the "research" article currently at FAC, could the methodology/findings of the research be briefly summarised here? Also, maybe worth linking to that article, either in "See also" or through a section heading.

Fixed, see above. As per your recommendation, I added the "main article" tag.

• "As author Malcolm Gladwell has stated": "As" implies editorial agreement with the author.

Well, there is! ;) Just kidding; changed to the ever popular "according to..."

• "stated that the effective use of television as an educational tool needed to capture, focus, and sustain children's attention": Grammatical problem here: the effective use needed to capture? Maybe "to be effective as an educational tool, television needed to…"
• "as Gladwell put it, "small but critical adjustments"[3] to each segment to capture children's attention.": Not quite sure what this means, and I think the ref is better at the end of the sentence.

Moved ref; I think that the change I made makes it more clear, but please tell me if you disagree.

• "The seminars' participants generated long lists of goals": I think seminars' could be cut from the sentence.

Ok, done.

• "At first, the goals were stated from the child's perspective, but eventually they were restated to reflect the writers' perspective": Not quite sure what this means; if it means that they were changed from "child-speak" to adult language, I'm not quite sure of the relevance for this article.

Changed it to reflect some of the original language in the source, and added an example in a note. Does that help clarify?

• "As Lesser stated…": Editorialising again. A few other instances like this.

Fixed, will look for more as I go through. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 19:46, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Cognitive goals

• Were the findings described in this section made after the broadcasts, or as part of some pre-show research?

Both. Some was previous research that they used to inform the content, and some was used as a result of the research garnered after the broadcasts. I think the difference is clear in the prose. If you disagree, please give me specific instances when it's not.

• "The workshop's researchers found that by crafting the show's segments…": Is this a particular "workshop", or is it referring to the CTW? It may be worth standardising whether calling it the workshop or the CTW.

You're right, of course. I saw that I don't explain that the first instance of it in the previous section, so I clarified.

• "Morrow reported that the only violence depicted on Sesame Street was "slapstick punctuation",[25] and that it was used only in animations and short films.": Again, maybe move the reference to the end of the sentence.

Got it.

• "Coviewing" or "co-viewing"? Both are used.

• I would suggest standardizing to co-viewing, which is what SW uses on their website. -- Zanimum (talk) 14:03, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Actually, "coviewing" is used once, when referring to Truglio and Fisch's discussion of it; they, unlike the SW, don't include the n-dash. Should I put in a note to that effect?

• "According to Davis, Jim Henson was instrumental in creating the show's "two-tiered audience"": How?

• I've jumped in and revised this one, subject to fsf's agreement. -- Zanimum (talk) 14:03, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

I think that this sentence works better when introducing co-viewing, so I moved it to the previous section. I'm good with the revision, thanks. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 20:26, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Affective goals

• "Gikow called writer Emily Perl Kingsley an "expert"[41] at interpreting the show's curriculum goals surrounding tolerance, diversity, and inclusion, especially as it related to the disability community.": Move ref to the end?

Sure, done.

• "As a result, the Workshop organized an outreach to inner-city communities…": An outreach? Not sure about this phrase anyway.
• I don't think it is really made explicit how the show tried to reach the target audience.

I removed the first part of the phrase and put the rest of the sentence where it better fits in the next paragraph.

General

• Spotchecks not really possible; looked at the only online ones and found no problems, so I'm happy on this count.
• Dablinks and external links check out fine. Sarastro1 (talk) 13:34, 1 December 2012 (UTC)

Response to review done. Thanks for the input and feedback. Christine (Figureskatingfan) (talk) 21:23, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Everything looks fine now. Happy to pass. Sarastro1 (talk) 21:45, 8 December 2012 (UTC)