How to write instead of what to write

As soon as I started rereading the article, I began picking it apart.

How did he establish a narrative at the beginning?

How did his own writing compare to what I had done throughout my blog?

What parts were interesting and what parts did he make interesting?

Throughout my own blog, I tried to work on my narrative writing using stories from my own life and then use these narratives to make more academic topics more relevant to the reader. And, so, I of course dissected his writing into segments of narrative and analysis, trying to figure out how he pieced these words together to form an article that informative and far from long-winded.

Robert Kolker creates an interesting balance in this article between story-telling and argument in order to create a piece of writing that is both interesting and informative.  One of the main things that I noticed about this article was the way Kolker began with a story, and then integrated his opinion and evidence within it.

 He takes a real person and real events, and writes about them like a narrative, beginning by setting up the environment and characters—describing the day, the classroom, and then the “main character”, Ahsan— and then establishing conflict—that “nothing about [Ahsan] suggested he was about to pull off the most brazen feat of cheating in the illustrious school’s 107-year history” (Kolker 1). Kolker walks us through the events of the day like a story, building the plot as the principal interrupts the test and accuses Ahsan of cheating. It is this story that Kolker uses to attract the reader’s attention so he can continue with the main point of the article—to report on a cheating scandal and what it means for the rest of us.

Dan Areily talks cheating:

By establishing a story early on but not yet finishing it, Kolker keeps the reader interested and ultimately makes the reader more interested in the more scientific parts of his argument—the evidence, the quotes, his own opinion. And, as the article continues, he makes Ahsan more dynamic by describing his personal history and how hard Ahsan worked to get accepted at Stuyvesant.

Rereading, I was more aware of these strategies Kolker used and thought about the ways I could integrate these story-telling strategies in my own blog posts that were more academically focused. I also paid more attention to how the cheating within the article now applied to myself now I am at college—how the consequences might be even harsher, how there is now a much wider and diverse group of people around me who have differing opinions on cheating (and who also have participated in it as well).

            (Not that there wasn’t cheating at my high school. It just wasn’t as dramatic as the scandals described in the article.)

Some cheating stats

When I read this article back in June, I focused on what I had done all throughout high school—taking in the content and then creating an analysis in response. However, reading it again after finishing my first semester of college, I was more aware of the way that this content was argued, which, perhaps, may at times be a more valuable approach.