Literature Review 1

a) BIBLIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION: Windahl, Sven et al. Using Communication Theory. New York City: Sage Publications, 1992.

b) The book is broken down into three parts: the basics of communication theory, the theoretical approaches to communication planning, and the elements of mass communication theories. I chose to reseach the third part, and focus mainly on political campaigns. I found a very useful general rules about campaigns. It will help me create my own communication campaign to educate others about Darfur.

c) The purpose of the research done in this book is to teach others how to use communication theory effectively and to get the best results from it.

d) The research in the book is qualitative. The authors cite many different communication sources. There is a long list of references in the back, all of which sound very credible. The information is not biased either, so this give the author more credibility also.

e) This book does not violate any critical thinking rules. They followed each of the guidelines rather closely and it made for a good source to use in my research project.

Project Progress

In doing my literature review, I did a lot more research on my topic. I don't really like long, tedious projects like this because I feel like I never get anything done! I made some major progress over break though. It's sometimes hard to find information about communication specifically about politics, but that means I'll need to research a broader topic and apply it to politics. I think my project will be very interesting and help STAND recruit more members, since they are working toward a very important cause.

Reading and Learning-Disabled Children: Understanding the Problem

a) Bibliographic Information: Martin, Don, Magy Martin, and Kathleen Carvalho. "Reading and Learning-Disabled Children: Understanding the Problem." The Clearing House, Vol. 81, No. 3 (Jan.-Feb., 2008), pp. 113-118

b) This article is about teaching learning disabled children to read and write. The authors emphasize that academic success comes with good reading skills, as reading well will enable you to excel in school work. The authors also stress that children with learning disabilities have the most trouble reading, and that they need to begin to read early. All disabled kids are different, so they need different exercises to get them reading. The authors suggest that teachers and parents use a combination of whole-language approach and direct-instruction approach. The authors also warns teachers and parents about psychological and social problems that stem from poor reading skills. The authors close with recommendations for teachers to most effectively teach children with learning disabilities to read.

c) The article is separated into sections by headings. There is an introduction, background of the problem, emotional consequences for non-readers, neurological learning factors, choosing instructional approaches, psychological and social implications, and recommendations for teachers. I really liked the way the authors included headings to separate the article.

d) The purpose of the literature review done by the authors of the article was to see the success rate of each trend used with learning-disabled children.

e) There were no critical thinking violations in this article that I saw.