The
New York Academy of Art holds clay sculptures of humans who have met ugly
deaths and were found as skeletons throughout New York City. As Mr. Mullins, a
forensic imaging specialist, states they have all “lost their identity.” These
bodies have been found on train tracks, wooded areas, and in basements. The
Academy gets on average eleven new skeletons a year that have no identity. The
Academy started a class that gives its students the opportunity to construct
these skulls based on the remains found. The work of the artists here is a
“last ditch effort” to identify these victims, and in some cases determine the
killers. The city has begun trying to use the skull to sculpt a face when more
traditional methods, such as fingerprinting, dental records and DNA testing,
fail.
This article has a large affect on
society. If the Academy can create skulls, there is a greater chance that these
unknown victims can be identified. And if they are identified, then more crimes
can be solved, criminals prosecuted, and families can finally move on. In
essence, each of the skulls created is a blueprint for others to look at it.
The goal of this class is for people to have a chance at saying “Hey, that
looks like my uncle or my cousin.” This may seem improbable, but even if it
only works a few times, that allows more victims to be identified, who would
have been otherwise left unidentified.
This article goes very in depth into
the class that the students at the Academy take. The author of the article is
good at explaining the class, but not much else. The article was also strong with quotes from
experts. This made the article much stronger. At points the article is
repetitive. The article also focuses too much on the Academy. I wish the
article focused more on the results of this class than just the class itself.
It would have been nice if the author told us if anyone had been identified as
a result from the class.
Kilgannon,
Corey. "Through Art and Forensics, Faces of Unidentified Victims
Emerge." The New York Times. The New York Times, 20 Jan. 2015. Web.
01 Nov. 2015.
18 comments:
Current event 6 comment
Emme Kerj
Ralph, I think you did a great job explaining why the Academy decided to start this class of giving faces to missing people. You also pointed out that the article should have talked about the successfulness of the class, which I think was really smart and I completely agree because I definitely kept wondering whether or not this class had turned out to be helpful or not while reading.
I would have liked to read a bit about your own opinion and why you think it’s beneficial for the Academy to start this classes. I think that you also should have explained more exactly what they do in the class and what type of techniques that the students are taught since this is a big part of the article. I also think that you should have brought up that this class was an idea presented by an actual identification agency and that if the class did a good enough job, they might consider to work with them in the future.
One thing that I thought while reading the review and article is that not only is the class good in order to identify victims but it helps teach young people about the forensics profession, identification in particular. I thought it was very cool to see some pictures of the faces that are created with the skulls and I find it really interesting that professionals can recreate the faces of victims just from the skull and average measurements. I also found it incredible that the sculptures that the art teacher had made had gotten 30 notifications about people who recognized the faces of the unidentified victims.
Works cited:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/21/nyregion/through-art-and-forensics-students-give-unknown-victims-an-identity.html?_r=0
This article was very interesting to read about. I like the fact that throughout the article, Ralph cited important, authoritative professors to make explain exactly how the the bodies are picked and how the class works. In the second paragraph, I thought it was very significant that he related what was happening in the paragraph to society as a whole and how it leave a huge impact on society. This is because this class is giving more of a chance of people to be identified. This leads to more people being identified. Ralph did a great job in explaining to us why the Academy decided to begin the class in the first place.
It would have been much better if Ralph incorporated a little bit more about exactly the procedures that take place during the class with the unidentified bodies. This review also would have been more interesting if he shared his own opinion about this class and if he, specifically, thought it was beneficial not only to society.
I think it is interesting that bodies are allowed to be taken from the streets and used. However, I believe that this does give more of a chance for families to identify their loved ones. So, in general, this class is very significant to have.
this article was quite the interesting read. I liked how throughout the report, ralph cited the sources and explained in depth what was happening. I think that ralph could use more outside information in order to answer any questions that the reader may have. Ralph did a very good job explaining why the academy begun having classes. I liked the mix of factual evidence, and opinionated material which creates quite an interesting piece of literature. Overall I would say that ralph did a fantastic job in this current event.
I think that Ralph did a good job in summarizing the article. He did a great job in explaining how people who had ugly deaths have clay sculptures in order to help identify the individual. He also did a good job in explaining why the Academy started the classes. Lastly, the review was concise and easy to understand.
He could have improved by putting in quotes. He said that there were good quotes in the article so I would have liked for him to include a couple of the quotes to help explain the article. He could have also shared more of his opinion about what he thinks about the classes.
Making a clay sculpture of someone’s body is a very interesting method to identifying a person. I think if this method works then it can help find many identities in the future. Overall, the review was well written.
In this review, Ralph summarized on how The New York Academy of Art has been holding clay sculptures of skeletons that have endured gruesome deaths, to help identify the victims and the killers. Ralph did a great job structuring his review first of all, staging his review in a well-organized manner with great transitions. Ralph also did a good job of explaining the purpose of the clay sculptures that have “lost their identity,” and helped paint a picture for what exactly these sculptures were all about. I also think that Ralph did a great job on how he executed talking about the affect the exhibit will have on society; he promptly stated the goal of the class and was very logical and to the point about it.
If I were to add any suggestions, I would maybe say to add more information on these clay sculptures. This is something that I have never heard of and I’m sure it’s new to a lot of other people, so possibly elaborating on the details of the process, and how it all comes together. My other suggestion would be to get more of Ralph’s opinion on the article, because it seems to be more of a summary than an opinion. I suggest asking, do you agree that this is a logical way to identify bodies? Is it morally correct?
I learned that creativity can be expressed not only as an art form but can also serve for a greater purpose, like solving a murder.
I really liked how you found an article that can be so beneficial to the police force and to the victim's family.I found that you did an excellent job at integrating the quotes from the article to make your analyses of the article even better. I also liked how you emphasized the importance of these sculptures and how they are the last hope for some families. I wish the article could have been more specific and stated how often these sculptures help with cases. Also if many of these students ending up becoming involved in Law Enforcement and especially sketch artists would be something interesting to know. I was surprised that the school would be given 11 bodies a year to draw and sculpture.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/21/nyregion/through-art-and-forensics-students-give-unknown-victims-an-identity.html?_r=0
Kilgannon, Corey. "Through Art and Forensics, Faces of Unidentified Victims Emerge."The New York Times. The New York Times, 20 Jan. 2015. Web. 01 Nov. 2015.
Ralph overall summarized the article well. He explained coherently how people who had ugly deaths have clay sculptures in order to identify undeterminable individuals. He didn’t forget to explain why the Academy started the classes. The review was easy to follow and comprehend.
As for where he could have improved on, there were a few grammatical errors that made the review tricky to read. He also could have included more quotes since he pointed out the fact that there were good quotes in the article. Lastly, I think he could have incorporated his thoughts and why he thinks it’s beneficial for the Academy to start this classes. I think that he also should have explained exactly what they do in the class and what type of techniques that the students are taught since the classes were a huge aspect of the article.
Being a person fascinated by both fields, I was instantly intrigued by the title since it had “art” and “forensics” in the same sentence. I didn’t expect sculpting someone’s body with clay would actually lead to their identification. It was also interesting to be made aware that there are classes dedicated to such, and the existence of a museum that holds those sculptures.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/21/nyregion/through-art-and-forensics-students-give-unknown-victims-an-identity.html?_r=0
Kilgannon, Corey. "Through Art and Forensics, Faces of Unidentified Victims Emerge."The New York Times. The New York Times, 20 Jan. 2015. Web. 01 Nov. 2015.
Ralph overall summarized the article well. He explained coherently how people who had ugly deaths have clay sculptures in order to identify undeterminable individuals. He didn’t forget to explain why the Academy started the classes. The review was easy to follow and comprehend.
As for where he could have improved on, there were a few grammatical errors that made the review tricky to read. He also could have included more quotes since he pointed out the fact that there were good quotes in the article. Lastly, I think he could have incorporated his thoughts and why he thinks it’s beneficial for the Academy to start this classes. I think that he also should have explained exactly what they do in the class and what type of techniques that the students are taught since the classes were a huge aspect of the article.
Being a person fascinated by both fields, I was instantly intrigued by the title since it had “art” and “forensics” in the same sentence. I didn’t expect sculpting someone’s body with clay would actually lead to their identification. It was also interesting to be made aware that there are classes dedicated to such, and the existence of a museum that holds those sculptures.
I think Ralph did a good job at presenting what the academy is doing. He also explained very well why the academy creates skulls and what it benefits. Lastly Ralph also explained well that even after creating the skulls sometimes the victims still are never identified. Overall I thought this review was good.
I would suggest to put more quotes from the article into the review. Also I would suggest to go more in detail about how the students use the skull to sculpt the face.
I was surprised that by constructing the skull based on remains that were found it can allows victims to be identified because I always thought to identify a victim you had to use DNA testing.
Ralph did a great job explaining the article. The article itself was a good read. Ralph explains how each of the bodies were picked and what would be done to each skull when being taught in class. He also explained why classes at the Academy started. Ralph talks about how successful the class is and the effects of the class.
I would have enjoyed reading more about how they exactly choose the bodies. He mentions it but it is a very interesting topic to learn about. Another thing that he could have added was some quotes since he talks about quotes being said by experts.
Overall the review was very well written and was an interesting topic to read about. This new technique is very odd and new but seems effective.
The summary of the article was extremely interesting to read about. Ralph did a great job citing the professors so that he could explain how each individual body is selected. He did an amazing job describing the Academy’s decision to create the classes.I really enjoyed how he tied the article back to its impact on society. With the help of class identification the enormous number of Doe will go down over the years.
I would have liked if Ralph went into depth about the process in distributing the bodies into these classes so that they can be identified. Secondly, the review would have been a lot more intriguing if he had added more of his own opinion on if the class system could actually be effective. Along with if the class system seems to be working would any agency actually adopt the model and use it to identify victims.
The article is very interesting because the identification of bodies has often amazed me. As well as the possibility of a new model to help the incredibly difficult task of identify the deceased. Which is such an issue as of now that there are so many cases of John and Jane Does that it is impossible to go through them all. That is why I found this specific article interesting
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/21/nyregion/through-art-and-forensics-students-give-unknown-victims-an-identity.html?_r=0
Kilgannon, Corey. "Through Art and Forensics, Faces of Unidentified Victims Emerge."The New York Times. The New York Times, 20 Jan. 2015. Web. 01 Nov. 2015.
I though that Ralph did a great job at summarizing the article without making the review too lengthy or too brief. I thought that Ralph also did a good job at explaining the topic at hand while still going into the scientific details of the article. I personally think that this is important because this review is supposed scientific and cover opinions as well as facts, I think that this goal was properly achieved. Finally, I thought that Ralph did a good job at showing the purpose of the article, which is why classes started in the first place and how successful they grew to be.
I thought that while this review was pretty well-written, I would have liked to have read more about how they choose the specific bodies. I also thought that even though they weren't glaring, there were several grammar errors that could have been corrected. Finally, I thought that he could have given a slightly better personal opinion on the subject at hand.
I thought that the article was very interesting and that the technique discussed in the article in new and effective.
You did a great job explaining the importance of the article and the academy discussed in the article as well. You made it clear that the work they are doing recreating skulls will lead to more skeletal identification and possibly more crime solved. The topic you chose was very unique at first when you were talking about an art exhibit I was confused how you were going to make this connect to forensics. But, now it’s clear it fits with the class perfectly and really hooks us in to reading your review as its different from other forensics reviews we’ve read. I think your criticism of the article was well done in explaining what would have been more helpful for you as a reader when reading the article, and what was helpful while reading; it was very constructive.
In the opening paragraph you mention that students are given the opportunity to reassemble the skulls, which is so fascinating, but you never explained the process in which they do this. It’s a bit confusing as it is unclear how much of the ‘remains found’ they need in order to construct these skulls. Giving information such as that would allow the reader to know how accurate the reassembled skulls were. Also in the closing paragraph you mentioned how much stronger the expert quotes made the article. If you had added some of those quotes into your review to support some of your findings, I think your review would have been stronger as well. Overall, I love how you found an art exhibit and talked about forensics. It really emphasized the forensic role in everyday life today. Great job!
Kilgannon, Corey. "Through Art and Forensics, Faces of Unidentified Victims Emerge." The New York Times. The New York Times, 20 Jan. 2015. Web. 01 Nov. 2015.
In Ralph Chrappa’s article, it was about how unknown victims that were found on train tracks, wooded areas, and in basements could become identified. He describes how forensic imaging specialist describes that many victims lose their identity when they are left in areas and they decay. These cases are not solved as much as cases that include victims that weren’t found as skeletons. The New York Academy of art has clay sculptures of humans that have died and were found as skeletons in New York City. They get eleven new skeletons a year that have not been identified. One thing he did well was that he describes how the academy begun a class that gives students the opportunity to construct these skulls based on the remains that were found. Another thing that Ralph had done well in reviewing his article was that he described how the work of the sculptures is the last type of effort to identify the remains of the victims. One room of improvement is that he could have described about how the sculptures are helping the police by sculpting these skulls because if they are incorrect, then they could be leading the police to something else that is not accurate. Also, he could have gone into more detail about the class at the academy of art in New York City and why they created the class. I am a little confused on how they are creating and sculpting the skulls by looking at the remains of the skeleton and how that can find the killer of the case. I thought that your criticism of the article had been explained well and had helped me read and understand the article. I was very impressed with this article because it described a new way for investigators to find the perpetrator in a case as well as the identity of the victim if the victim has decayed. I chose this review of the article because I thought that it was interesting to learn more about how a academy created a class in order to help the efforts to find the identity of a victim.
This is one of the most interesting current events I have read yet this year. It is very interesting, and alarming that these bodies have lost their identities, even with all the technology that we have today. It is awesome that these bodies have been found on the train tracks, around wooded areas, and in basements, but very alarming that they have no identity. The New York Academy of art is doing an awesome job constructing the skulls based on the remains, due to the fact that the bodies have no identity. The fact that this academy is doing this for the greater good is awesome, and as stated in the article, if they can create these skulls it will allow the victims to be identified. It was nice how the article explained and put in a lot of quotes from the experts to make the article stronger and more reliable. One way to make this review a little better would be to make it longer, although you did a great job summarizing the article, you could go into more detail about how the victims could be identified from the clay sculptures. Great job overall!
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/21/nyregion/through-art-and-forensics-students-give-unknown-victims-an-identity.html?_r=0
Kilgannon, Corey. "Through Art and Forensics, Faces of Unidentified Victims Emerge."The New York Times. The New York Times, 20 Jan. 2015. Web. 01 Nov. 2015.
I enjoy the way he tells a story. I felt like I could see the murders happening. I felt sorry for the victims left in a building or on the train tracks. I felt happy for the families that were able to identify their lost loved ones thanks to the artists teaching and taking these classes. I liked the fact that he did not dwell so much on the classes (like the article did) but instead, concentrated more on the forensic aspects of the article. Another well presented aspect of this review was the way he conveyed the desperation of individuals after losing a family member and then their elation after finally identifying the remains.
I was a bit confused at times. He kept referring to the process of constructing skulls. This made me assume that the skulls of the victims suffered severe damage, which needed repair. After I read the article, I realized that it was not the skulls that were in need of reconstructing, but the faces that had to be put onto the skulls. I also think the article summary could have been made better by including more information about how the faces were created. Since I began this class, I have always been fascinated about how they know how far away from the skull to put the skin. I wish I could have found out today.
I was impressed that there exists an additional way to identify people even if it is a ‘last-ditch effort’. These productions are probably the most likely way to yield an identification when achieving one seems impossible. Through article summaries, we have learned of various ways of putting names to victims who have either badly damaged faces or none at all: dental x-rays; smile photographs; and most recently, familial DNA matching. I believe this process is much more effective than giving a description to a police sketch artist, even if the person is a family member.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/21/nyregion/through-art-and-forensics-students-give-unknown-victims-an-identity.html?_r=0
Kilgannon, Corey. "Through Art and Forensics, Faces of Unidentified Victims Emerge." The New York Times. The New York Times, 20 Jan. 2015. Web. 01 Nov. 2015.
There is a common Latin saying: “Ars longa, vita brevis.” This quick abbreviation means “art is long, life is short.” Often at times, this phrase is used to describe how short human lifespans are but how art can last indefinitely, even though the full quote actually discusses how long it takes to master a medical profession (in this case, a forensic profession). Nonetheless, the misinterpretation has more to do with the article Ralph Chrappa chose than the true meaning of the words because in his article, art students reconstruct the faces of 11 skeletons, belonging to poor souls who had suffered terrible deaths. As a result, art is used to imitate life and create a medium for identifying these victims. Thankfully, Chrappa firmly establishes this main point and expresses it fluently yet universally, using many colloquials to express each of his points, such as the phrase “last ditch effort”.Equally, his points are given out coherently and in the same order at which they were addressed in the original article.
However, Ralph’s current event review is in need of a little bit of improvement. First of all, he needs more examples and quotes to substantiate his article. Offhandedly, he refers to the 11 victims and the scenes at which they were found but to some degree, this will certainly be not enough in the future. Also, while not a criticism necessarily, the article was not obliged to mention the results because it could be that the sculptures were not finished at the time the article was written. Referencing the Academy more than the results also prevents a breach of understanding; remember, the New York Times is written by and for normal, everyday people who do not understand the intricate specifics of forensic anthropology. As a result, the relevance is held in respect for the arts.
Again, art is long but life is brief. Perhaps, it is why this article was read long before the people involved die. Nevertheless, Ralph Chrappa handled this article fairly well and if there are more current events like this waiting to be written, things are looking up. While the article was in need of some fine tuning, he covered all his bases and created a solid and interesting review. Now, it seems that these cases will be dealt with more swiftly; only there is some classic Greek irony in that fine art students are encouraged to act like forensic sketch artists, like there was a sharp twist of fate. Hopefully, this exercise and more exercises to come will allow the art students to broaden their horizons. In the meanwhile, let’s hope that these students are not forced to neglect their other gifts.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/21/nyregion/through-art-and-forensics-students-give-unknown-victims-an-identity.html?_r=0
Kilgannon, Corey. "Through Art and Forensics, Faces of Unidentified Victims Emerge."The New York Times. The New York Times, 20 Jan. 2015. Web. 01 Nov. 2015.
In his review, Ralph explained how The New York Academy of Art has been creating clay sculptures of skeletons that have gone through gruesome deaths. This new idea is to help identify these skeletons as victims and possibly find their killers. I felt Ralph did a great job of summarizing the purpose of the sculptures. I loved how he said the sculptures are like “blueprints” while explaining the purpose of the clay sculptures. I also agree with his comment that the article should have mentioned how successful the class was. Lasty I thought he made his summary stronger by using a few short phrases directly from the article. The short phrases, such as “lost their identity” and “last ditch effort” proved how horrible the damage was to these people and how unsure this process is.
In this review, Ralph mentions how quotes made the article much stronger. If Ralph had pulled one or two of those strong quotes then maybe he could have made his review much stronger. Also while Ralph mentioned the article talked to much about the sculptures I believe Ralph didn't talk enough about them. A brief description of what the class is actually doing to create the clay sculptures would help the reader.
Overall I thought Ralph picked a phenomenal article. It was a topic i’ve never read about and I found it to be extremely interesting. The fact that an art class can help give skeletons back their identity they have lost is amazing and it is even more amazing to think of people who have been identified by families or friends.
Post a Comment