#1 Party School

The issue of the article was about partying schools.  The main focus of the article was State College, Pennsylvania because Penn State was named the number one party school in 2009, but the speaker's also discuss other schools.  Some subtopics that were discussed in the article were the amount that people drink, the school's plan to reduce drinking, and the tragedies that have occurred due to drinking. 

The reason that this issue was being investigated was because problems with drinking at universities has grown significantly in the past few decades.  The researchers were trying to show the typical lifestyle of college students at a party school. 

The audience that the speakers are trying to reach are students that are in college and parents or any adults.  The speakers are addressing college students because they are trying to inform them about college life and warning them about the dangers that can come with drinking.  The article was for parents and adults because it informs them how college has changed and what their children are being exposed to right now. 

Some facts and details that the speakers talked about were the details that were included in the prologue from the woman's house.  Other details were the kids on the drunk bus, the fact that kids now drink mostly hard liquor instead of beer, the unniversities plans to stop partying like the setting up of late night at the HUB, and that win or lose there are parties.  Some facts that they included were that the limit for binge drinking for girls is four drinks and for boys is five drinks.  Also, the fact that half the students at Penn State binge drink on the weekend.  For the most part, the article was very lighthearted, but when the speaker brought up the details of the boy's death and tragic deaths at other schools it changed to be very depressing. 

The conclusion of the article is that drinking is still around in college, but that since the tragic accidents of students have occurred, students have become safer.  It was also discussed how when Graham Spanier became president of the school he tried to get rid of Penn State's reputation and got booed.  It is not his goal to make kids safer and inform them on the dangers of drinking, and not to pretend like drinking does not happen.  

Research that was included in the report were the statistics of the amount of drinking that students do.  There were a lot of interviews throughout the report, but some that stand out in my memory are the pizza delivery man talking about his broken jaw, the fraternity boy, the business owner saying that he liked the students, the drunk 21 year old at the tailgate, and the freshmen getting on the bus and discussing how they weren't slutty until college.  Some professionals that spoke were the police officer and Graham Spanier's speech when he first became president.  All of the facts and interviews allowed for the report to become more detailed and for humor to be added to a serious topic. 

Some narrative techniques that are used in the report are details, a specific topic, multiple viewpoints of the topic, and obviously dialogue and humor.  The speakers also used pathos to try to get the students listening to be safer drinkers by telling them sad stories about drinking. 

I wish that the report had been a little bit shorter, but overrall I really enjoyed it.  I thought that the speakers, whether intentionally or unintentionally, included a lot of humor into the report by interviewing drunk kids.  I also loved the section titles.  "I'm not as think as you drunk I am" was my favorite.  I literally laughed out loud when I read it.  Some things that I did not like about the report was that since you had to listen to it instead of read it, it was pretty hard to focus on it at points.  I also thought that the section about down town businesses could have been shorter or more interesting.  Some thing that I would have liked to learn more about in the story are more comparisons of Penn State and other schools that explain what makes Penn State a party school.