English and Literature
Paper instructions:
The questions for this group discussion will show a strong resemblance to the last Gawande discussion questions you had, however now you have a stronger understanding of your assignments and the proper methods for identifying effective topics. So, keeping this in mind, answer the following questions, as a group:
Keep in mind that the polio epidemic is not itself a single specific problem, but rather a tremendously broad subject that is caused by many smaller problems. The purpose of this discussion is for you to examine the issues inherent in “Mopping Up” the polio epidemic in India, and to try and divide that struggle into all of its separate problems.
As usual, once you do this with Gawande, you should apply the same scrutiny to your own topic–making your chosen topic as specific as possible
1. Now that you have read “The Mop Up” by Gawande, you can see that numerous factors contribute to the current problem. What are they? In short, WHAT is preventing the doctors and volunteers from eradicating polio in India, through vaccinations? As a group, come up with all of the individual problems you can recall from the reading, which account for the reason that it has been difficult to eradicate polio in India.
2. What are some of the solutions or methods that have been used to deal with these problems? What secondary problems prevent those methods from succeeding?
3. Now that you have extracted many primary and secondary problems out of the Indian polio vaccination issue, which ones seem like the easiest to solve? Which ones seem the hardest? A strong research problem should have a set of specific, resolvable causes. So which problems within the polio vaccination issue seem like they would make the best research topics? Each member of the group should answer this question, and explain his or her answer why.
4. Respond directly to one of your group mate’s answers to #3. Do you agree? Why or why not?