Hi Claire

So I’m going to write what I think as I read your paper I would put it in Microsoft Word, but I
can’t enable editing... So the paragraph is pretty interesting, and the goals that you set out to
achieve appears lofty. The paper’s main topic seems to be to assess information and determine a
direction to help students with disabilities in the United States academic arena. The historical
background is a great way to start as most people reading this at least in class will have no clue
about the argument to provide a sound point of view.
“After the inhumane conditions of the facility and cruel treatment of people of disabilities
in residential facilities were exposed in the media such as the Willowbrook Expose in 1972, the
public became aware of the need to reform the system.”
This sentence is a little convoluted; I also see similar issues in future sentences. I think the best
way to get rid of this convoluted feeling is to lower the times you use the word “of” It gets
confusing at times perhaps use an apostrophe to demonstrate possession. I know it’s a little
weird, but I think it might help.
An edit to the sentence I mentioned earlier might provide some reference:
After the inhumane conditions of the facility and cruel treatment of people with
disabilities in residential facilities were exposed to the media, i.e., the Willowbrook Expose in
1972; the public awareness for systemic reform became prominent.
Maybe not the word prominent maybe palpable or something like that anyhow I hope that makes
sense.
As for the court cases listed, I think that’s cool, but I have no clue what they mean perhaps you
could add a sentence summary about their impact on American policy… on the other hand, I
could look it up. I think it might be better to have the last sentence of the second paragraph in
the third paragraph where you explain what those acronyms mean. Another idea may be to
change the location of where you explain the acronyms, but it’s better to have the list of
acronyms after you explain what they mean. Ok so third paragraph. and your mentioning of the
source “Heward,” reminds me of an edit I received on my contribution draft, is good but I’m still
a little confused about its importance and why you're referencing it so much. For example is it a
book, what is the author's importance? Just one sentence would be enough to satisfy the validity
of their credentials. In addition, what does the research say to agree with Heward and Zigmond's
claims? Is there any testing information that may show correlation? I suppose the thing I am
looking more for in the third paragraph would be statistics.
Ok, so I think the paper outline so far is background history and then points of view on
the debate of what to do with students that have disabilities. So after that perhaps in your
conclusion a direction of possible action might be established. Perhaps you should put Zigmond
and Dahill in a paragraph together to show their opposing points of view. I’m not so sure yet,
but I think that by including Zigmond in the paragraph with Heward it makes it seem as though
Dahill and Heward oppose each other because of her opposition to Zigmond. I could be wrong,
but it might help the flow to outline each author view in their own paragraph. Another idea, one
paragraph on Zigmond, Dahill, and then how Heward brings the ideas together. At the end of
Zigmond and Dahill, you could argue why their ideas may be flawed and incorporate some of
your own ideas about the best direction education could take in regards to students with
disabilities.
So after the discussion of opinions, I think you try to direct the conversation to ways
people try to teach or include those with special needs in their classroom. Again this is a good
idea but I want to see some statistics for example how effective were these ideas and how much
do they cost? How big was the study group and has the example been replicated is its cost worth
the gain? After all there isn’t enough funding so how much bang do I get for my buck? I’m sorry
if this sounds crass, but if you’re really trying to argue change and choose a direction, then I need
to know what it is that you think will be the best path for education to take after your
presentation of the facts. If this isn’t the topic then ignore everything I‘ve been saying and will
continue to say. Also please make sure to spell out the acronym before you discuss it, I really
think this will provide a better sense of direction and wholeness. I’m somewhat underwhelmed
thus far, but perhaps that’s because I misunderstood your intentions. Like I said before the
argument goal is lofty, but I’m not finding direct instances of what you think would be a true
change to the education system. Your comment in the second to last paragraph
“Families, educators, staff, and administrators come together on an annual basis to discuss the
student’s progress and how well the services match the needs of that student. I believe this is the
main driving factor behind the success of future special education services.”
Seems somewhat obvious to me and I think everyone would agree with what you just stated. The
problem I’m finding in this argument is the lack of what would create the best noticeable change
in the academic life of a student with disabilities.
Side note this sentence makes more sense with the highlighted “with”: “Although the teacher
will have to distribute his or her time among all of her students and those with disabilities will
require more attention and care, there are additional supports that can be utilized to make
inclusive classrooms just as successful if not more.”
Got to the conclusion, I think I got the idea somewhat right and somewhat wrong. I
suppose it makes sense as the paper is more of a general overview than anything else. I didn’t
really get a grasp of what you thought was a good solution until you explained it in your
conclusion, but even that did not feel cohesive to me at the end. All in all, I think the paper is
good, but it’s not very strong to me. Again general overviews tend to leave me with this feeling,
and if that’s what your intentions are with this paper perhaps you should change the thesis
statement:
“The goal is to explore factors like service efficiency, educational policy, practical
application, and public attitude within this debate to uncover important implications and the
future direction that we should strive toward to further improve the academic lives of students
with disabilities in the U.S.”
From that, I derived that you would be giving me an idea of what you thought would be
the better direction for the education system to take in regards to its students with disabilities.
Instead of that, the argument seemed to change over time and simply provide an overview. I
think the subject matter provided here was interesting, but I was not enthralled since your voice
was more of a narrator telling me some facts along the way. In addition to the facts, there was no
data, statistics, or cost analysis provided, so I wasn’t able to judge the validity of the ideas
represented. All in all, I don’t want to discourage you as I do think this paper is on a good start, I
just think the most important thing is to decide what the topic of your paper truly is: an overview
of the situation or providing a solution to the problem. As I wrote before, I did see in your thesis
that your intention was to explore the factors but when it leads to the “uncover…. the future
direction we should strive toward” I’m led to believe there will be an actual opinion developed
throughout the paper and not an overview of information. Anyhow like I said before your paper
is off to a good start and just remember that these are only suggestions. Also sorry for the length.