I. A. Richards Findings

I.A. Richards was born on February 26, 1893, and died on September 7, 1979. He was an English critic, poet, and teacher who was highly influential in developing a new way of reading poetry that led to New Criticism, an influential movement in literary theory during the middle 20^th century.  Richards went to Magdalene College in Cambridge and was a lecturer in English and moral sciences there from 1922 to 1929.

I. A. Richards was one of the first professors to make a systematic study of how his students actually read poetry without guidance. He describes the methods he used in his famous book, Practical Criticism, written in 1923.  Richards gave his students lots of poems but no extra information, like the titles or authors, and asked them write commentaries about the poems.  He discovered that many of his students failed to understand the poems.

Zinczenco Summary

                In his article on childhood obesity, David Zinczenco claims that the fast food industry is responsible for the growing number of obese children.  In his view, children are victimized by the fast food industry providing cheap, unhealthy food that fills the void left in the absence of a traditional home-cooked meal.  He argues that with their parents working long hours and unable to provide healthy food, many children have no alternative but to eat at fast food chains.

                However, the way I see it, there are alternatives to fast food for children with parents without the time to cook them a healthy meal.  A turkey, lettuce, and tomato sandwich, for example, takes very little time to prepare, and isn’t too expensive.  Add a glass of milk, and you’ve got something from every major food group.  As for the kids, if they’re old enough to be left alone all day unsupervised, then they should be old enough to make informed decisions about the foods they eat.  Zinczenco makes it sound like its difficult to be able to tell exactly how many calories are in most meals served by fast food chains.  I don’t think kids really need to know the calorie count.  All they need to know is that fast food is bad for you, and you shouldn’t eat too much of it.