This article presents the new and surprising science of the teenage brain. National Geographic magazine documented a group of teenagers last fall in Austin, Texas. As they told their stories in pictures, the article talked about the new emerging science behind the development of the teenage brain.
The whole concept behind the development of the brain is a very long description. The brain’s axons gradually become more insulated with a fatty substance called myelin, which boosts the transmissions up to a hundred times. While this is happening, the little chemical junctures that the axoms pass notes around, called synapses, wither away from little use; forming the brain’s cortex- the outer layer of the grey matter where we do our most complicated thinking. While this layer becomes thinner, it becomes more efficient as well.
This process is called maturation, and it was once thought to be finished by the time a child finished elementary school. But now, it is being seen by a study started in 1990 that this isn’t the case. As we mature, it gets difficult to get the cogs of the developing brain to mesh with the more mature- resulting in a struggle to balance impulse, desire, goals, self-interest, rules, and ethics.
Teenagers are 45 percent more likely to take risks more than adults; and 25 percents of teens are more likely to feel a rush of the thrill in taking these risks. As Lawerence Steinburg, a developmental psychologist, states, “teenagers are more likely to rule with impulse, not thought.” Teens have always been ridiculed for making stupid or dumb decisions, and I thought this article portrayed the new science very well. Now, it has been proved that if we didn’t mature at the pace we did, we would end up dumber.
-National Geographic, October 2011
Citation
Dobbs, David “Beautiful Brains” National Geographic, October 2011 36-59
Madi did a great job summarizing this article. I believe she chose a very interesting piece to write about. The sentences were long and complex which impresses me because it was not an easy article to write about. She used a lot of rich vocabulary to make the summary more attention grabbing which I think is notable. I also liked the way that she organized her summary. She started with the main idea and then went into detail additionally explaining how this affects us teenagers. I’m also really fond of quote she used, “ teenagers are more likely to rule with impulse, not thought” because I think it gives a good point of view of the writer of this article, which also helps to further understand it.
ReplyDeleteTo improve this article I think she should’ve explained the definitions of the words. Since the summary was very complex, it would’ve been helpful to understand some of the meanings of the words. If there were definitions I would’ve understood the article better. I also would’ve liked if Madi gave more of her opinion about the article. She did a great job summarizing it, but I wish I got to know her point of view more.
I believe this is a very intriguing article to read. It is definitely an attention grabber because it has an affect on us teenagers. I mostly agree with this article because most teenagers do like the adrenaline rush so I just found it fascinating to why that is. I think I mostly liked this article is because it implies to teenagers and its appealing to learn about how our brain works.
Right off the bat, Madi did an awesome job summarizing the article for us. I was very impressed with her vocabulary and her ability to summarize because it gave me a really good perspective on what the article was addressing, especially since it seemed like such a challenging article in the first place. Madi also did a great job organizing the information in such a way that it wasn’t too difficult to read, but very understandable. Madi also gave us plenty of details, which almost made me feel like I was reading the article myself.
ReplyDeleteI think Madi could’ve improved her address of the article by giving us more of an opinion so that the readers would be able to agree or disagree with her opinion, sparking new ideas on the article. I also think that Madi could’ve improved by maybe adding some of the definitions to the words, because as awesome as her summary was, I had some trouble trying to put it into perspective.
I thought that Madi did an awesome job of explaining what was in the article, because now I want to read it myself. The article taught me that the teenage brain tries to take more risks than one of an adult, and I somewhat thought of this before, but now hearing about it through a proven article and I can definitely conclude it is true.
Madi did a superlative job summarizing the article. She focused only on the key points of the article and explained them in enough detail so that a reader can understand without being lost. She also only uses the complex vocabulary necessary to explain the article which helped to make the summary less confusing. Madi also did an excellent job of showing the findings in this article and expressing their importance to the teenage growth process.
ReplyDeleteI think that Madi could have made her review even better if she stated whether she agrees or disagrees with the conclusions drawn up in the article as that is a very important part of the scientific findings. Also, she could have made the transition between the first and second paragraphs a little smoother to make the writing flow better, and making it easier to read.
I found this summary to be very interesting because, unlike many other scientific articles, it has a direct connection to the most important parts of our everyday lives. This hooked me in and made me want to read the article for myself to learn even more on the subject.
I thought that Madi did a great job on this article. She did a really good job summarizing this article. I liked how she had a alot of great detail in her summery especially when she was explaining the teenage brain and their study about it . Her summarizing really made me understand this article even better. Madi also had a lot of vocabulary that really made it stand out. I also liked how Madi had the example of the percents on the teenagers I thought that was very interesting and really grabbed my attention.
ReplyDeleteTo improve on the article I thought that Madi could have expanded on some of the vocabulary because it made the summary hard to read at times. I think if she did this her article would have to connect more. Also in her last paragraph I thought she should have given her opinion more. So we could see her side and what she things about this article.
I thought that this was a good article. I thought that it was interesting then past articles because it applies to me because its about teenager brain’. What I really found interesting about this article was that teenagers are more likely to take risks then adults and that Teens are more likely to rule with impulse than with thought. And that when we get older its harder to balance impulse, goal, and rules. I thought this was a very interesting story.
Madi did a great job summarizing this article; she described perfectly the minds of teenagers. This article was intriguing, and it was really interesting to here her right about. I was impressed with her strong vocabulary and willingness to teach us this article. She organized her summary wonderfully so that it was simple to follow and understand the information. Finally I was impressed by her effort to simplify the article and cover so much difficult information in such a small amount of writing. This made the article a lot simpler to follow.
ReplyDeleteMadi wrote a wonderful article summary however I think she could have improved this summary by giving us a swift transition into different topics, so the piece would not be hard to follow. I also thought Madi should have stated her opinion on this topic to show a personal interest in the topic she chose to summarize.
I thought Madi chose a great topic because it was interesting to people our age because it is about teenagers. I though it was more interesting to read because of the change in topics. I found the fact that teenagers take more risks than adults do because teenagers have impulse and adults base their lives on rules and what is right and wrong.