Sunday, December 14, 2014

An Ebola Orphan’s Plea in Africa: ‘Do You Want Me?


            The article that I read is about is how a young orphan who has lost her family from Ebola and there are no files identifying who she is or who her family is. The only thing left is her sweet, loving heart. This young orphan, who is called by the name of Sweetie Sweetie, lost her whole family except her mother, but soon that was lost too. Sweetie Sweetie would spend her time taking good care of her mother. She would wash her mother’s soiled clothes, not very well, but the effort shows how much she cares. Nurses say she is about the age of four and her name is unknown, which is why they call her Sweetie Sweetie. After Sweetie Sweetie’s mother died, she stood outside the clinic’s gate, just letting her eyes wander. She waited and waited, but no one picked her up. She was taken to a home, where social workers are trying to find someone to adopt her. One day Sweetie Sweetie asked a visitor, “Do you want me?” Roeland Monasch, head of Unicef’s office in Sierra Leone said, “If there’s an earthquake or a war, and you lose a mother or a father, an aunt will take care of you. But this is different. These children aren’t being taken in by extended family. This isn’t like AIDS orphans.” For now, Sweetie Sweetie remains living in a group home with nine other children, who have either lost their parents or other who’s have been lost in the maze of isolation centers and Ebola clinics.

            This article is a very good example of well-written work. The story flows nicely and sounds good and dramatic. When I was reading this article, it really touched me. The information that they provided makes you feel really bad for Sweetie Sweetie. It makes you think about, what would you do if you were in this position? After reading this article, I had a very good understanding of what the author was saying. One thing that the author could have done better was providing a few more quotes. Doing this will help the readers know what the victims feel like. Otherwise, I thought this article was well written.


            One thing that I found very interesting in this article was how bad Ebola really is. The article said that the United Nations officials estimated, “More than 3,500 have been infected and at least 1,200 have died. Overall, I found this article very interesting to read.

by Ava Austi 

7 comments:

  1. Maggie Miller 12/14/14
    Current Event 9 Chem odd EF

    Ava Austi’s review of the New York Times article, “An Ebola Orphan’s Plea in Africa: ‘Do You Want Me?’ by Jeffery Gettleman presented a direct summary of the event. She clearly stated exactly what the article was telling the readers and provided helpful details. Also, I found it helpful Ava used more than one quote from the article to help support her views. As well, Ava included background knowledge about Ebola and how many people it is effecting. However, Ava’s review appeared a bit repetitive, she stated what had happened “Sweetie Sweetie” more times than necessary. Furthermore, Ava’s last paragraph is only two short sentences, one of which is a quote. It was difficult to process what was being told because the writing lacked a casual flow between thoughts and sentences. Nonetheless, I was interested in the topic being reviews and found the story of, “Sweetie Sweetie,” very interesting and inspiring.

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  2. Harry Colvin 12/14/14
    Chemistry Current Event 9

    In this article review Ava Austi reviewed the article, “An Ebola Orphan’s Plea in Africa: ‘Do you want me?’. “ In this article review, Ava did a very good job on giving an emotional summary and pulling the reader in. It made me want to read on as I wanted to find out what happened to “Sweetie Sweetie”. Another thing that Ava did well was avoid grammatical and punctuation mistakes. It was a very smooth read and included great language. A third thing that Ava did well was give a critique of the author. I read the article and agreed with her critique on the author not giving enough quotes. One thing that Ava could have done better was including a little more basic information in her review. I did not find out what country this story was based in and I had to refer to the article to find out (Sierra Leon). Another thing that Ava could improve on is include more to the story about what happened with Sweetie Sweetie, as in the article it went farther then she explained. One thing that I learned from this article/ article review was the whole story of Sweetie Sweetie, it was very emotional and heart breaking.

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  3. Gettleman, Jeffrey. "An Ebola Orphan’s Plea in Africa: ‘Do You Want Me?’." The New York Times. The New York Times, 13 Dec. 2014. Web. 14 Dec. 2014.
    After reading Ava Austi’s review of the article “An Ebola Orphan’s Plea in Africa: ‘Do you want me?’”, I was really touched. Ava found a way to write the summary very well, so that you could almost feel Sweetie Sweetie, the ebola orphan, suffering in a group home in Africa. Another thing I really liked about Ava’s review was that it included multiple quotes. One said by Sweetie Sweetie, and one said by an expert on helping suffering children out. The quote by Sweetie Sweetie brought the reader even closer to her, and help the reader feel even more sympathetic to her situation. The second quote said by Roeland Monasch includes a different perspective other than Ava’s, which can be very helpful to review, by helping it introduce different ideas. Lastly, I liked how Ava included a question in her critique, which left me thinking about the article, and what I would do in Sweetie Sweetie’s position.
    This review, unfortunately, also had many flaws. First, there were many grammatical errors in the review, and the transitions were not very smooth, which caused the review to be slightly unpleasant to read. Also, Ava did not include much of a relevance paragraph, to show how the article could have an impact on herself, or the world.
    Despite, this being a slightly flawed review, I really liked the topic Ava chose to write about. It really puts in perspective the amount of suffering people in Africa are going through while dealing with the Ebola crisis. I found the story of Sweetie Sweetie very sad and there are many important life lessons to learn from it.

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  4. Gettleman, Jeffrey. "An Ebola Orphan’s Plea in Africa: ‘Do You Want Me?’." The New York Times. The New York Times, 13 Dec. 2014. Web. 14 Dec. 2014.
    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/14/world/africa/an-ebola-orphans-plea-in-africa-do-you-want-me.html?_r=0
    Ava’s review of “An Ebola Orphan’s Plea in Africa: ‘Do You Want Me?’.” was extremely touching and well-written. One thing that I liked about her writing was that she gave examples of Sweetie Sweetie’s desire to help others, showing how she washed her mother’s clothes while her mother was sick. This made the reader feel sympathy for Sweetie Sweetie and hope that she finds happiness. Another thing that Ava did well was including quotes to give the reader expert perspectives on how this story shows a problem for many. Ava included a quote from a Unicef leader explaining how many won’t take in relatives or orphans whose immediate families have been wiped out because of ebola because of fear of the disease. I also enjoyed Ava’s suggestion for the article’s improvement. I agree that, if more quotes were included, the article’s impact would be heightened. One thing that I thought Ava could have improved on is her explanation of the disease. Her last paragraph mentioned its badness, but I think that if she explained in greater detail why people were unwilling to take in orphans because of their exposure to the disease, the reader would gain a greater understanding of the problem’s severity and feel more knowledgeable about the issue. One other thing that Ava could have done better would be including a link to the article in her review. With a link, the reader could perform further research on the issue easily. One thing that I found interesting about this topic was that children who had had family with ebola were kept together, and it made me wonder if they had been quarantined before to make sure that none of them had the disease. This might lead me to look into how the children are being cared for and the resources available to people in ebola-affected countries. Overall, Ava’s review was emotional and forced the reader to consider the effects of ebola on those who didn’t have the disease.

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  5. After reading Ava’s review I particularly liked her strong use of quotes in her review, I feel that quotes strongly increase the impact of the review and i felt that Ava did a good job incorporating quotes into her review. I also felt that Ava’s background story was well done as well, I was fully able to understand the situation, making it a little easier to comprehend but its a sad story so its going to be difficult either way. Finally I liked the way Ava posed a question in her second or significance paragraph, especially the one she wrote because it puts you in their shoes and forces you to truly think about the situation which requires you to have an understanding of the situation which leads back to the fact that Ava did a nice job summarizing the story.
    Alternatively I felt that there were some faults in Ava’s review. Primarily I felt that she could have added a lot more to her significance and critique paragraphs. If these paragraphs are too short and lacking detail you lose the reviewer’s voice and you just hear a summary of the original author’s work. Secondly I felt that Ava could have talked a lot more about the childrens home that Sweetie Sweetie was placed into or have another sentence on why here extended family wouldn't take her in.
    In conclusion I was extremely surprised to read that Sweetie Sweetie’s extended family wouldn’t come to get her and take care of her. If a simple disease can force people bonded by love what could an epidemic do, make people into savages? Overall I felt that Ava did a good job with only some places that could use some extra work.

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  6. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/14/world/africa/an-ebola-orphans-plea-in-africa-do-you-want-me.html?ref=science&_r=0

    Gettleman, Jeffrey. "An Ebola Orphan’s Plea in Africa: ‘Do You Want Me?’." The New York Times. The New York Times, 13 Dec. 2014. Web. 14 Dec. 2014.

    For my current events comment, I reviewed Ava’s write-up of “An Ebola Orphan’s Plea in Africa: ‘Do You Want Me?’” by Jeffrey Gettleman. In her write-up, Ava gave a good summary of Gettleman’s article. She described how a young orphan lost all of her family from Ebola and how there are no files identifying who she is or who her family is. When doing a write-up of an article, I think that the summary is the most important component. Another thing that Ava did well in her write-up was that she did a very good job critiquing Gettleman’s article. She stated many things that Gettleman did well in his article, and she thoroughly described one thing that he could have improved upon. Lastly, Ava’s review was written well and did not have any typos at all, and this made it very easy to follow.
    Although Ava’s write-up was well-written, she could have done a few things better. In her write-up, Ava explained that the article touched her and she thought of what it would be like to be in the orphan’s position, but she did not go on to talk about the fact that not enough is being done to help these people. I do not think humanity is dealing with this problem in the right way, and after you read a story like this, I think that is an important thing to talk about in your write-up. Also, while Ava gave a very good summary, I think she could have shortened it a little bit by eliminating a few of the details of the story.
    The article that Ava wrote about tells a very sad story. I feel like I have reviewed other articles about Ebola that were written by this same author, Gettleman. I think he is doing a great job to raise awareness about Ebola by telling these stories. There is a lot of important research in science going on to understand and fight Ebola, but his articles tell us about the human side of the story.

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  7. Ava had a well-written analysis about the article, "An Ebola Orphan's Plea in Africa: 'Do You Want Me?'" by Jeffery Gettleman. From the summary, one may be able to tell how powerful the article is before even reading it and the summary was easy to read because there were no words that I did not understand. Another thing Ava did well on was including quotes, especially the one she chose, because it gives the reader a sense of another person's opinion on Sweetie Sweetie. One way she can improve is by not using so much repetition. Another thing she could do is explain Ebola, a reader may not know this deadly disease like others may and it would be nice to know something more about it. From this article I now realize how much Ebola is affecting people around the world. Though this is not the biggest news in the US as it was before, there are still many people being affected by it today, some who are now orphans because of Ebola.

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