The Big Sort Activity 2

The Big Sort

Surveying the Text

Surveying a text helps readers prepare and make predictions to focus on the main ideas. It is unimportant to be right but to see if you were.

Part One

You will be reading two primary texts in this module. In the brief
introductions to the texts below, note portions that may provide clues
about each text’s audience

“The Daily Me” was printed in the opinion section of the New York
Times. It was written by Op-Ed Columnist Nikolas Kristof and
published on March 18, 2009.

“The Daily Me Is Neither New nor Bad” was published on
Huffingtonpost.com on May 2, 2009. Eduardo Hauser wrote it as a former head of news for a television network, a National Public Radio board member, and a current media entrepreneur and CEO of DailyMe.com.

Open Ended

Which clues in this text help you to best predict the article?

“The Daily Me” was printed in the opinion section of the New York
Times. It was written by Op-Ed Columnist Nikolas Kristof and
published on March 18, 2009.

Open Ended

Which clues in this text help you to best predict the article?

"The Daily Me Is Neither New nor Bad" was published on huffingtonpost.com on May 2, 2009. Eduardo Hauser is a former head of news for a television network, a National Public Radio board member, and a current media entrepreneur and CEO of dailyme.com.

Part Two

On the next two slides are introductory
paragraphs from both texts. This time,
notice words and phrases inside each
sentence that may provide clues about
each text's main idea, purpose,
audience, and occasion. Also, note
portions that provoke questions.

Open Ended

What clues can you identify in each sentence that provide insight into the text's main idea, purpose, audience, and occasion, and what questions do these portions provoke?

These are paragraphs 2-3 from “The Daily Me”:

When we go online, each of us is our own editor, our own gatekeeper. We select the kind of news and opinions that we care most about. 

Nicholas Negroponte of M.I.T has called this emerging news product The Daily Me. And if that’s the trend, God save us from ourselves.”

Open Ended

What clues can you identify in each sentence that provide insight into the text's main idea, purpose, audience, and occasion, and what questions do these portions provoke?

These are paragraphs 1-2 from “The Daily Me Is Neither New nor Bad”:

Certain journalists have recently expressed fear of a “new” trend they believe threatens their already struggling institutions—the growing news personalization Web sites that Nicholas Negroponte of M.I.T. coined “The Daily Me.”

But they shouldn’t be scared. The trend isn’t bad, and it isn’t new. In fact, far from being an enemy to news media, “The Daily Me” trend stands to help save journalism.

Open Ended

What is the main idea, purpose, intended audience, occasion, and questions to be answered in "The Daily Me"? Use the language function tool of explain and describe to help you write your grammatically correct paragraph.

Open Ended

What is the main idea, purpose, intended audience, occasion, and questions to be answered in "The Daily Me" and "The Daily Me is Neither New nor Bad"? Use the language function tool of explain and describe to help you write your grammatically correct paragraph.