Running head: ARTICLE REVIEW 2 1

Article Review 2

Jordan Urbistondo

Bryan College
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The article I found is named “Why Social and Emotional Learning is Essential for

Students” written by Roger Weissberg. It was then edited, re-released and co-authored with

Joseph A. Durlak, Celene E. Domitrovich, and Thomas P. Gullotta. This article basically gives

the different reasonings of what why and how social and emotional learning is essential for

students. If you look at the article you will notice that it has multiple sections such as, the “5

Keys to successful social emotional learning.” They then added subsections with elaborating on

the five keys. Those subsections are “Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social Awareness,

Relationship Skills and Responsible Decision Making.” Then they elaborate on “The short and

long term benefits of social emotional learning. Then the last three sections they elaborate on are

“Building Social Emotional Learning Skills in the Classroom, How Schools Can Support Social

Emotional Learning, and Building Family and Community Partnerships.” Lastly, they had

concluded with a section named “Notes,” which is used for citations and other articles that

elaborate on social emotional learning. The most objective as possible summary for this article is

literally the title of the article. The authors elaborate on how social emotional learning can be

essential to students, as well as, why it is essential to students. The authors created this article to

try to persuade, as well as, make teachers at least think about why they should consider using

social emotional learning in their teaching.

With evaluation, the article is very well written and is good with addressing their

audience’s needs. I say that because for those that are looking for an article to explain what

social emotional learning is, they can easily read through this article and gain much information

and can be persuaded easily. Or maybe if there was a teacher considering using social emotional

learning, they can learn how to use it easily by reading through the article. Next, they have done
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really good with using research because let's face the fact, without citations or research yourself,

creating an article that is credible would be really hard to do. Not to mention, the authors have

made the article appealing to the eye because they have made the font bigger for you to gain an

emphasis. Also they have used a visual for you to look at. They used a pie chart showing the five

keys surrounding social emotional learning to emphasize how important the five keys are to

create social emotional learning. I am sure most people that have looked into this article love the

introduction like I do,

“Today's schools are increasingly multicultural and multilingual with students from

diverse social and economic backgrounds. Educators and community agencies serve

students with different motivation for engaging in learning, behaving positively, and

performing academically. Social and emotional learning (SEL) provides a foundation for

safe and positive learning, and enhances students' ability to succeed in school, careers,

and life.”

I state that the introduction is enjoyable because it speaks of facts and gives you a little taste of

persuasion to catch the eye of their audience. With all of those compliments stated for how well

they have done with this persuasive article, there are also a few negatives too. Such as: the

advertisements within the article, their citations and sources from a long time ago, and they could

have used a couple more visuals. If they want to catch the audience’s eye, no matter the

circumstance, they should not include advertisements in the article. Also, the article was

published in 2016, not far from us now, 2020, but their sources ranged from 2000 all the way

through 2014. If they want to make the article more credible they should have used more recent

sources because every year is different and each generation changes. Lastly, another key to
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catching an audience’s eye through an article can be using multiple visuals. The fact they had

only used one actual visual within the article, they may not catch the audience’s eye completely.

References

● Weissberg, R. Durlak, J.A. Domitrovich C.E. Gullotta, T.P. (2016) Why Social and

Emotional Learning Is Essential for Students, ​Learn more about the critical role that

social and emotional learning plays in promoting student success,

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/why-sel-essential-for-students-weissberg-durlak-domitrov

ich-gullotta