Rhetorical Strategies: Education Advocate Article

This article was posted in the Charlotte Observer today actually.

The thesis of this article is "Increasing charter schools, giving public schools letter grades, abolishing a teacher tenure and piling on new standardized tests - all moves that have been passed or proposed by the state legislature - that hurt kids and enrich corporations."

The organization is well thought out. The author, Ann Doss Helms first talks about Diane Ravitch, education author and advocate. Helms continues to quote Ravitch through out the entire piece. Ravitch made a speech in which she believes North Carolina's education is headed down a destructive path. Towards the end she starts using quotes on how everything could possibly be fixed

Since she is quoting someone of authority throughout this whole piece, that is her complete evidence and a rhetorical technique: ethos. She some interesting choice of diction too, using words such as "surge, abolishing and seized."

All in all Helms does a good job of laying out her argument, even if it is a lot of quotes from Ravitch and her own opinion. Its an article that a parent could pick up and feel the need to get involved in their child's public school.

Perparing to Write a Rhetorical Analysis

• The writers of this article is Daniel McGrath and Daniel Princiotta. It doesn't give any further information as to what these authors do for a living, so there is little way to tell if their opinion could be biased.
• The writers purpose of this article is to show how the rate of private school teacher turnovers, how they coupe in new jobs, and how the ones who choose to stay gain more authority. The writer probably hopes to achieve an audience who can gain knowledge about the average private school teacher.
• This topic is very broad, people its a study based on private school teachers, and the different places they have to work. There's many options they have and McGrath and Princiotta do it all. There's many types of privates schools to focus on, also how organized teachers are, and how often they get new teachers.
• There's many arguments on whether or not public school or private school is better, and studying the teachers is another way to find out the answer to that argument. Its a huge topic talked about among my parents and their friends.
• Throughout this article the writers often uses logos, by using statistics and other characteristics of teachers. He uses a chart comparing the amount of teachers who stay at the school compared to the ones who leave. This is what also helps his credibility.
• The arguments thesis is "National studies have included both private and public school teachers in analyses of teacher turn over. These studies have shown that teacher turnover is associated with teacher perceptions of school organizational characteristics, including low levels of administrative support, little input into school decisions, student disciplinary problems, and insufficient salary." This is stated at the beginning, mainly because through out the rest of the article its giving you statistics, if it wasn't at the beginning, you wouldn't know the purpose for all these statistics.
• The evidence he uses is again, real statistics from private schools which support his argument. He does use enough evidence
• The writer does not use similes, metaphors, or allusions.
• The writer uses some rhetorical questions
• My overall assessment of the article is something that i can probably use in  my paper.

The Things I Didn't Know Were Do Last Friday

I didnt know they were due by ten pm the next day, aka last friday. Since I cant even get partial credit, even for not checking my email, I wont be doing it. I promise now to never use wikipedia. I learned that lesson a long time ago though anyways... 

I hope one blog post doesn't hurt my grade. Guess I can talk about it in the conference? It kind of sucks cause if we had class I probably wouldn't have missed it. Oh well! 

Hope yall had a good Spring Break :)

Wikiphobia: The Latest in Open Source Reading Response

I had a really hard time following this article. I felt like i had to go back and keep reading this author's gibber gabber. A teacher, named Neil Waters, found his students using false information, which they found from Wikipedia  Other encyclopedias are also not acceptable for citation either. Bothered by this miss use of information Waters decides to write a new policy: 1. Students are responsible for the accuracy of information they provide, and they cannot point to Wikipedia or any other similar source that may appear in the future. 2. Wikipedia is not an acceptable citation, even though it may lead to a citable source.

Yes, The author did argue his point well. He first says everything that he wanted to change for the department in his school, and then fully backed up in the information he had. He talks about the benefits that Wikipedia does have but still finds a way to make sure students don't use it in their writing.There aren't really any holes or questions left simply because I was taught to never use Wikipedia, therefore, I don't really care about it. It doesn't exist to me.

I agree with the author, as I said before, I was taught to never use Wikipedia because its such an open source.

Golden line: "Google whisked me immediately to Wikipedia." I love this line because it is most commonly the first source Google pulls up for you.

Comic Analysis Second Draft

Madeline Allen

Keaton

02/25/13

English 112

Public School vs. Private School

The first comic is two students talking about the differences in public school and private school. It’s is split up into two pictures. The first part shows the boy throwing all his papers, books and pencils in the air saying “WOOHOO! Summer 2012! And I don’t have to go back to school until October!” and a girl responds to say “How is it that private school kids have so little SCHOOL? Three-week vacations, five-month summers...” The second part of the picture is a zoomed in view of the boy who says “What did you think we were paying for?”

Clearly this picture is mocking school, public and private. For many reasons, other than choice of diction and syntax, this picture makes private school seem easy.

First: their clothing. The boy is dressed in a nice and neat uniform, his shirts un-tucked but he still has on a tie and his hair is gelled neatly. He has a messenger bag, that’s probably leather. The girl is in what looks like sweat pants which are her school colors of course, and a t-shirt with a paw print in the center or it. Her hair is pulled up into a pony-tail and she has a book bag on her back. Their clothing obviously depicts the difference between public school kids and private school kids.

The choice of syntax the girl uses in this comic is so subtle that it almost goes unnoticed when first read. She says “so little SCHOOL,” suggesting that kids who go to private schools do very little school at school. After that the boy replies with “What did you think we were paying for?” So that’s a little confusing, are they paying the school, to go to school less? His hand is extended out with his palm facing upward as if to motion “it’s no big deal.”

The background of this comic is all red and it’s very unclear as to why. Red is vibrant, and catches the eye, making more people drawn to the comic so that they will read it.

The main idea of this comic is that private schools are very expensive, and do go to less school days than public schools. The comic’s purpose is to make you think: Is private school really the right choice for my child?

The Second comic leans to the other side. Public schools deal with a very important problem, lack of funding. In this picture it shows a man in a suit busting through a classroom door saying “Good morning! Due to state budget cuts your teacher has been removed. Who would like to teach class today?” The children are all looking around with huge and confused eyes. They look shocked.

The children are in desks and they are in rows facing the teacher’s desk. This is the most popular format of a class room. This makes it relatable to many more people. The desk at the front of the room shows the sad empty chair sitting at the front of the class. The very black blackboard is right behind it, this also makes it more relatable. It stands out against the very white floor.

The man is dressed in a nice suit with a red tie, which suggests that he was the principal. Maybe even the Superintendent? His face is smiling brightly, like what he is saying to these children isn’t terrible at all. The face that stands out most is the kid in the front of the classroom. His head is turned away from the principal, with his eyes and mouth wide open. Anytime one cannot hide their reaction, especially if it’s a reaction from someone of authority, they turn around. This poor boy, at the front of the room, most likely inferring that he’s the teacher’s pet, just found out his favorite person on this earth will no longer be teaching him.

Even though this picture is fiction, and there would likely be a substitute, the words that the principal says are meant to stand out, the key words being “State Budget.” State budgets for education are often a popular topic come election time. That is because the majority of children are in public schools, and everyone, including parents whose children go to private school, pay for public school.

It’s unclear if the creator of this comic is someone who is for private schools; however those who look at it can easily be led to believe that if their child goes to a public school their education may not be properly funded. In a private school that will never be the case. You’re paying what is usually a high amount to make sure your child gets everything he may need.

It all comes down to what you want for your child, and how much money you are willing to spend to make sure their school lives up to your standards.

 

Self-Assessment Reflection: Comic Analysis

1. My goals for writing this paper is to really, repaint the comics and let the audience even see how to really look and analyze the picture. However I wanted to make sure they stayed with me. I never wanted to take it too far. I think I did a good job, judging by the comment I received from my group before. They told me I could take it just a little bit further and thats what I did.

2. I definitely used my class time. I love my group, and their advice. Were really able to be real with each other without taking it the wrong way. I think its because we all actually CARE about our papers. Time wasn't really a factor for this paper. I think I was a lot less stressed compared to the exploratory proposal, probably because I had never done something like it.

3. I took advantage of my peers advice. I feel as thought their advice is just as important to my paper as I feel my own view of my paper. My work with my group is just very casual and I never thought it could be that way.

4. My group contributed, obviously. And my friend Logan who attended both public and private school who was my inspiration for the idea in general.

5. I've learned that I'm a strong writer who can be stronger. It's a humbling challenge and I love it. Writing, is a school assignment I actually dont mind.

6. The hardest part was finding the comics. It was like two hours worth of searching. I'd find one but then its be hard to pose it against the other until I finally came up with these two. 

7. I feel like my paper flows in a way that I cant really split it into parts. I just like it in general because its a topic i would never talk about, unless I had to talk about school. Which brings out my passion for how a student should feel in school.

8. I'm not sure where my paper still needs improvement but I'm sure Megan and my group will let me know about that. At first my paper was in first person, because I missed the class prior to my paper. So I changed that and I think that really made a huge difference and made it more..idk...better? I cannot think of a better word for better.

9. Searching for these comics is where I spent the bulk of my time, because once I knew I had strong enough comics I flew with the writing. I think it took me less than an hour and a half to go over the images and write the paper. When I have the right thing to talk about I can say what I need to say and get it out and thats what I was able to do here.

Workshop Reflection: Visual Analysis

The advice that I received from everyone in my group was no first person. Ooops. Well I missed the previous class so I had no idea. So that's the first thing that I need to fix. I know I have a few grammatical errors and sentence structure problems.
Both MC and X really challenged the ideas I already had towards the images. But they took it and hit the ground running and I think that's whats going to make my visual analysis so much stronger.
The most helpful advice I received is is about one of my pictures. Its about the gesture one of the people is making and I think its really going to add to WHY my comic is so perfect.
Obviously the least helpful advice I received was to do my paper in first person. Cause I should have done it anyways. Even though its going to change my paper dramatically, the context wont.
My plans for revision are to first get rid of anything first person. And then take MC and X's advice and say more of why things are the way they are in my comic, instead of jus describing everything about my comic and letting the audience come to their own conclusion.