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)