Krista Ramsey

Krista Ramsey:

The third aritcle I read written by Krista Ramsey was called " Reading teacher wants students to pass test, love books" which was an article on a third grade teacher who was preparing her students for the OAA's. But the article stressed how it was important for the kids to actually enjoy reading fro their own pleasure and not just do it because they have to.

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/opinion/columnists/krista-ramsey/2014/03/15/krista-ramsey-third-grade-reading-guarantee/6475723/


While I read this article written by Ramsey, I noticed her variety of diction and syntax used in this particular piece of writing wasn't as wide as some of her other pieces of writing that I had previously read. She used simple everyday words which helped her get straight to the point she was trying to make through her writing. One specific line I picked out from the article was, "While she knows the test is about ensuring that every student who passes to fourth grade is an able reader, she can’t help but feel it’s also about her." So this line uses simple and everyday diction, which makes the article fairly easy to read and understand. Also the sentence structure she had used throughout her piece of writing was mostly short sentences, or sentences connected together with commas. This quote from her column is a great example to demonstrate how her writing was modeled for this specific article, sentences which are short in length, and make a statement while getting to the point.

Overall, after reading these three articles I find that the writing style of Ramsey is more factual and can be backed up or proved by actual statistics rather than being completely opinionated and just backed up by her beliefs. In the first article we read called "For better vision, kids need time outdoors", Ramsey wrote about how studies support this topic. "'In his work with University of Cincinnati sports teams, Clark sees athletes who either don't register as much in their peripheral vision or don't fully trust what they see. He believes lifestyle changes may play a crucial part." This line from the article supports her use of facts to back up her topic. In the second article I read by Ramsey called "Super Bowl QBs score points for great style" talked about how dressing better and more professionally can make you appear to seem or even be more successful. "we are all part of a collective experience and that we honor each other and ourselves when we care about how we're dressed and groomed." So this specific quote from the article supports her style of writing and how she continues to use statistics to prove that her claim in legitimate. And lastly the third article I read by Ramsey was "Reading teacher wants students to pass test, love books" which was an article on how the teacher Jeni Ernsthausen wanted not only to teach her students the basics to get them to pass their tests, but go above and beyond so that she could get her kids to actually enjoy reading as well. “'I’m not going to drill and kill them with a test, because I would be bored as a teacher, and we would all lose our minds,' she says with a laugh. Then she stops laughing. 'The OAA is a big deal, but I don’t want kids to hate reading.'” This quote from the article supports how the fact is that kids can begin to hate reading if they are forced to do it, but if they have a fun and exciting teacher who would actually make reading fun then there is more of a chance that those kids would enjoy reading more as they grow up.

Some questions that I would have about Ramsey's writing would be:

1) What are some of the things that inspire you to come up with the topics you choose to write about?

2) Do you prefer writing in the same sort of writing style in all your columns that you write, or do you prefers to include different types of writing styles in each of your pieces?

3) Did you always imagine yourself to become a columnist writer, even when you were in college or high school?