Another Look at Cheating Upwards

From the very beginning of this article, Robert Kolker drags the audience in. By using cliffhangers and descriptions that many people can relate to, Kolker sets the scene in the first two paragraphs. From that point on, we are in his hands, and want to read on to find out what Nayeem did to be called the "most brazen feat of cheating in the illustrious school's 107-year history." Kolker did a great job discussing the preparations Nayeem made for his scheme, and then how it played out in reality. By describing in great detail the lengths that Nayeem went to in order to plan out his strategy, Kolker made the article very suspenseful and dramatic, like a story rather than an account of events. Towards the middle of the article, when Kolker is describing the statistics behind student cheating and the reasons that drive students to do so, the article admittedly becomes more fact-based and not as story-like. However, Kolker brings back the story-like element when he describes his dinner meeting with Nayeem. When discussing Nayeem's case, he is able to make the story much more personalized. It is no longer a calculated guess about why high-school students are cheating based on studies and results, but rather, it is a real-life scenario, in which we can fully see the pressures put on a kid like Nayeem which push his hand to cheat. Overall, Kolker did a really good job of guiding his article between very personal and more general arguments behind cheating, which made reading the article more fascinating for me.

I vaguely remember that while reading this passage the first time through, before coming to college, I could not fully relate to the pressures and tension that eventually led Nayeem to resort to cheating. In reading this article a second time, however, I can relate more to the pressures that weighed down Nayeem. One line that especially stood out to me on my second reading is when principal Teitel says to Stuy's incoming freshman, "Grades, friends, and sleep--choose two." I definitely have had moments here at Michigan where I feel as though I must chose between these three aspects of life, moreso than ever before. Reading this again was a great reminder of how serious cheating is and how it is never worth it in the end.