alibi - evidence (like a witness, or video cameras) to prove that you are innocent of committing a crime.
affidavit - a sworn statement made under oath, given to police
adamant - stubborn, firm
Episode 1 plot development:
Checkpoint A:
Sarah Koenig is our storyteller, our narrator. She frames people and information (i.e.: Jay, Adnan, Asia's witness account) in specific ways, and this influences our perspective on the crime as listeners.
Sonny:
How does Sarah present Jay to us? What does she tell us, what does she leave out, and what are the connotations (underlying meanings) of these choices?
GeGe:
How does Sarah present Adnan to us? What does she tell us, what does she leave out, and what are the connotations (underlying meanings) of these choices?
Chloe and Vanessa; Elliot:
How does the revelation of Asia's affidavit and letters to Adnan influence the narrative? What are we left thinking at the end of Episode 1, and what do you predict will happen next?
Cole, Adrian, Jimmy, Abby, Sam, Anjali, Sameerah, Matthew, Satti, Kiarash, and Othman: please post your response to these three questions ("Checkpoint A") in the comments.
Sarah influences the way we view the characters by the way she frames them. She frames Jay by making him look very sketchy and a bad person. An example of this is when she says “They just kind of tool around Baltimore County as together for a while as if nothing had happened” after they had killed Hae.
ReplyDeleteA way she had Framed Adnan is that she made him seem innocent and not the type of person that would kill someone. A way she does this is when she says “He has giant brown eyes like a dairy cow. That’s what prompts my most idiotic lines of inquiry. Could someone who looks like that really strangle his girlfriend?”
There are many ways Asia’s affidavit to Adnan influences the story. One way it influence the story is that it gives the reader hope that the affidavit could be the thing that proves Adnan innocent. A way Sarah does this is when she says “What is inconceivable, they all said, is to not even contact Asia McLean, to make the call, never check it out, and never find out if her story helps or hurts your case.”
After Sarah finds out more about the affidavit she starts to question if it is truly legit.
C.J.
Sarah framed Adnan as being innocent, relaxed, uncaring and she thinks his statement is reasonable. She includes what was important and details and left out questions. G.J.
ReplyDeleteJay is framed by Sarah as being sketchy and untruthful. She includes important details like him helping Adnan build the hole and dropping him off at track. S.I.
ReplyDeleteAsia's affidavit and letters to Adnan allow people to find out that there could be an alibi and how Adnan could be innocent. I want to know more about if what Asia said was true, or if it actually happened that way. V.C.
ReplyDeleteAsia says she saw Adnan in the library at the time people though he murdered Hae. I want to know is Asia telling the truth? I also want to know why if Jay is telling the truth. C.B.
ReplyDeleteWhen someone reads a podcast that is non-fiction, what they read tends to be what they believe. This puts a lot of importance on the writer because they could make the people believe whatever they want. In the non-fiction podcast about Adnan Syed’s murder case the author makes the reader feel as though Adnan is innocent and Jay is bad. She made the reader feel as though Jay is wrong because she just dropped his story in, this isn’t good because there is no background knowledge of him being good. She also stated that jay smokes weed and that makes him sound bad because a lot of bad people smoke weed, and drugs never are a good sign. She also makes him sound sketchy because during the podcast it shows Jay telling the cops that he knew about the murder and that Hae was just killed, yet he still went to go pick up Adnan with Hae’s body (p.8). The author makes Adnan sound good because she describes him as a barrel chested big brown eye person (p.12), this creates sympathy because someone with those characteristics wouldn’t normally do something as bad as a murder. During the case, a girl named Asia Mcclain told the court she had an alibi. After she wrote that, she denied she ever did probably because she didn’t want to get involved with a murder trial. Yet the author of the podcast talked to Asia years after the trial ended, and Asia said that the alibi was true, this means that Adnan was innocent. When the author told Adnan that she had got that information, Adnan explained to her that it was too late and it didn’t matter anymore(p.24). When I heard this information I was frustrate because Adnan didn’t commit the murder, yet he went to jail for it. MT
ReplyDeleteThere were many ways that Sarah Koenig influenced our perception of the crime involving Adnan and a killing. Adnan was a man that was accused of murder because of events that happened in high school. Sarah explains him 20 years later looking like he is innocent and had big eyes like a dairy cow. She explains Adnan’s side of the story and tries to make out how he is innocent. One of the big reasons why he would be guilty is because if Jay though. Jay is perceived as shady and wants to get Adnan in trouble. “Jay sold weed, and he and Adnan smoked together”. Sarah doesn’t go out and say Jays a nice guy because he is sketchy. Jay was a drug dealer and smoked weed with Adnan. There could be a many reasons to why Jay is trying to get Adnan in trouble in the first place. Jay and Adnan were good friends in high school but not anymore the question was why would he help Adnan kill a girl if they weren’t good friends or at all. “And the second thing, which you can’t miss about Adnan is that he had big brown eyes like a dairy cow”. Sarah makes Adnan look like a nice person that wouldn’t kill a fly but with the judge’s approval and without very much evidence to prove that Adnan was guilty they sentenced him to prison. There were a couple ways that they might prove his innocence and that was by figuring out the time frame of in Jay’s story where he killed Hae. If they could have that evidence and proof then they can find out there’s no way he could have killed Hae if he wasn’t near Hae. The number one way to find that is by finding Asia a girl Adnan would talk to while at the library where Adnan said he was after school. Asia was a nice girl in high school and she had a boyfriend derrick that didn’t pick her up one day from school and he came late. That would perceive Asia as a nice person for letting him off the hook for once. Asia had written an affidavit but lied and said she only wrote that to get them off her back. “The affidavit was written voluntarily”. Sarah made Asia seem very important because she is the only one that might remember what Adnan was doing at the time Hae was killed. In the end Sarah uses many different tactics and ideas to change the way people perceive the story. SI
ReplyDeleteSarah influences the way we view characters in the story. Jay is framed by Sarah as a sketchy and bad person. An example of this is Jay saying that Adnan said that “that bitch is dead. Come and get me. I’m at Best Buy.” And did nothing about it.
ReplyDeleteAdnan is framed by Sarah to be a great kid. An example of this is she says” he has giant brown eyes like a dairy cow.” Which means that he looks like a friendly, gentle, and kind person, and looks innocent.
Asia’s affidavit and letters to Adnan influence the story by telling a different side of what was going on during those 25 minutes. JK
Jay is framed by Sarah to be a sketchy person. Is also causes Adnan to look very innocent. Not all of his story adds up and really throws the story when he dies give information. It’s very hard for Sarah to believe something that Jay says because of the way that he is framed.
ReplyDeleteAdnan is not able to remember what happened that day, and he has very little alibies on where he was at the time. Jay also frames Adnan saying that Adnan Hae’s body in his trunk. It is hard to do the same for Adnan or blame him because he cannot remember what happened.
Asia’s letters to Adnan and this kind of gives key information to Sarah on what really happened. But the story really leads both ways. We are left thinking who did it Adnan or Jay, and who else saw Adnan. AB
In the first episode of the serial podcasts “The Alibi” by Sarah Koenig, it talks about how a popular girl named Hae Min Lee is killed and Adnan Syed is sent to prison for the murder. There are many people who were involved in this case and in the first episode she talks about the three main characters which helps us have better view of how all of this went down. The first person we were introduced to was Jay, a guy who was friends with Adnan back in 1999. Sarah frames Jay as a bit sketchy and doesn’t seem too to be too trustworthy because his story was a little shaky in some spots and he started to change his story in some places when the police asked (Koenig 6).
ReplyDeleteThe second person she introduces us too is Adnan Syed. She frames Syed as a nice, warm hearted guy and wonders "Could someone who looks like that really kill his girlfriend?". Adnan was accused of killing his long-term girlfriend but in Sarah's eyes, she can't really see how that would happen.
The third main person we were introduced to is Asia Mclean. We found out that the affidavit was indeed true but it's not really all the helpful. It influences the story because it gives them hope but at the same time it’s a bummer that she's telling us this now. Adnan even says "Anything that can kind of support what I'm saying to be the truth, that I didn't do this, is great. But from a legal perspective, it's like, I wish she would have came to this realization mabye like a year and a half ago". This leaves people a little frustrated and I think that Adnan is going to take this to court.
A.B.
In the podcast "Serial" by Sarah Koenig, Adnan is an average high school kid. He is convicted of murdering his ex girlfriend Hae. The case seems closed with little evidence until Asia McClean presents an affidavit. The letter says that she saw Adnan at the library after school. When investigators came to her house she said it wasn't true. Then she states that it was true and she was nervous. Still the affidavit seems reliable and Asia's boyfriend that picked him up agreed. Which leads me to believe, "Is Adnan really guilty?" E.D.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that they sat on Asia's letters for a whole 15 years is kind of hard to ignore because that is 15 years Adnan could have been living out his life. It also makes me upset that after getting Adnan's hopes up she backed down in front of everyone making Adnan's family and himself seem guilty of forcing Asia to testify when she was the one who offered to help. And the fact that she hid away for so many years made it seem like someone was trying to keep her quiet. But over all just the fact that she did have a chance to help a friend and then changed her mind says a lot about her character overall. S.J.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteJay sad that “after track practice, Jay picks Adnan up again. They drive around some more. By this time , ha’s family was worried, and they’d called the police, who in turn called a couple of Hae’s friend ,including Adnan” (p. 10). Jay is helping Adnan to kill Hae and got hem some shovels and a ride, Jay is untrustworthy bacons he is telling the cops that he is helping Adnan kill Hae.
That whet Sarah Koenig “Which you can’t miss about Adnan, is that he has giant brown eyes like a dairy cow.”( p. 12 ), that Adnan looks innocent. But his story is trustworthy.
O.A
Sarah Koenig is a journalist working for NPR. In the first episode of her story, she has shown us an interview of Jay by the detective awhile back. She also interviewed Adnan herself, and interviewed Asia Mclean as well.
ReplyDeleteBut, before she did any of that, she talked to Adnan’s best friend and his sister. She asked them to describe Adnan and they kept on saying how Adnan was so gentile kind and sweet, how he was very popular and handsome. This set a good vibe about Adnan so far.
Later, she showed us an interview of Jay with the detectives. He told them how they were at the mall one day, and how that Adnan said that “he was going to kill that bitch, referring to Hae Lee (p. 7)”. That day was Jay’s girlfriend’s birthday, so they went shopping out together so Jay can find a gift for her. Later he dropped Adnan of at School with his cellphone and car. He then went to his friend’s James house and waited for Adnan to call (p. 7)! This was shocking, why would Jay wait at his friend’s house so Adnan can call him after he kills Hae?! Not only that but Adnan went and asked Jay to go buy Stephanie a present for her birthday. With this I can assume that jay was joules to the fact that Adnan would embarrass him like that! That could lead to him faking the story.
Sarah described Adnan as a person who has grown up and became a man, she said he had “giant brown eyes like a dairy cow” (p. 12). The way Sarah described him was as if she was saying Adnan was innocent. Like someone with big brown eyes, ya there’s no way this man is guilty.
The revelation of Asia and her letters were all about Adnan’s alibi. In her letter she told us how she was in the library after school talking to Adnan (p. 22). This revelation would have probably be a turning point in the case, if Asia didn’t decide to not go to court. This gave us hope, it revealed how Adnan had an alibi and told us that he probable was innocent.
K.A