In “The Privileges of the Parents” Margaret Miller, a writer, argues that we must focus on motivating first generation kids to go to college. She claims that the “privileged “ will attend anyway, but in light of the difficulty of the modern world, a college education is essential not just for financial reasons, but also to achieve the many responsibilities of life including completing tax forms or filling out the FAFSA. She offers statistics that show how educated parents raise kids with better vocabularies and reading skills, hence higher grades. Educated parents, Miller claims, are also promoters for their kids in high school and “hover” over them which, according to a National Survey of Education (NSSE) study she cites, contributes to …show more content…
She concludes by claiming that success of first-born college students is important for us now and for future generations. Margaret Miller writing in the essay “The Privileges of the Parents” goes further and argues that we must encourage especially first-generation students to go to college to avoid a “caste system” in which only the rich are educated. Miller cites statistics that show how educated parents raise children more likely to succeed in school : the benefits “ripple down through the generations”. The main idea from this article is that there are benefits that accumulate to individuals from having a college education. Miller emphases on others that have proven on the economic benefits such as the income differences between those with a high-school education or even some college education and those with a bachelor’s degree or higher. But when it comes to the private benefits of higher education, possibly even more important is how advanced intellectual abilities help people navigate contemporary …show more content…
Miller uses a very light, possibly even friendly, tone throughout her whole essay. She makes this tone apparent by mainly trying to relate to her audience. For instance, Miller says, “We have to be able to hop from job to job…as we acquire new skills and knowledge. We have to deal with a wider variety of people…” By doing this, Miller is trying to zero in on exactly what she trusts her readers could be going through. Also, Miller jokes with her audience, saying things such as, “We need to fill out FAFSA forms for our children (there, even a doctorate may not be enough!)”. Miller wants to make it apparent that she can relate to her audience. Her use of the word “we” itself, can go a long way, and accompanied by the discrete jokes, gives the reader a comfortable feel and more willingness to see her perception of the argument. Yet another tactic Miller uses to relate to her audience is her personal life. Miller states, “So I was aware of the stakes when my daughter-in-law told me about a friend of hers who hasn’t been to college…” Here, she is attempting to make her readers relate to her by mentioning her daughter-in-law, and the conversation which are held between them. It is quite possibly her readers have had similar conversations with their family; therefore understanding where Miller may be coming from. This insight into her life is simply a strategy to induce feelings on
Recently, many have begun to attack and degrade higher education in the United States. In the book How College Works, authors Daniel Chambliss and Christopher Takacs claim, “As state support has eroded, and as more students attend college in an increasingly desperate attempt to find viable jobs, the price to students of attending an institution of higher education has gone up, especially at more selective institutions” (172). So is college even worth it? Caroline Bird’s excerpt from her book Case Against College “Where College Fails Us” is an adequately written article that agrees with those who question whether college is a good investment. Bird argues that although some students would benefit from college and succeed, many fall short, wasting
As stated before, Miller was once a project director for the Pew-sponsored National Forum on college level learning from 2002-2004, and a Curry School of Education professor at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. She has experience in this area, as well as research from which conducted for a national education forum. In this work, Miller provides outside sources to represent families who do not have parents who attended college to compare to her own experiences, as well as the data she provides. Miller also uses: charts produced by Tom Mortenson, data released by Educational Testing Service (ETS), and National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), all credible sources. This essay appeals strongly to ethos.
Lamott continuously uses her personal experiences, mostly from “me and most of the other writers I know” to exemplify her arguments throughout the writing.
Also, McCourt’s voice reflects the narrator, Frank, very well. The sentences are short and not complex, just like a child’s. For example, he mentions, “Patricia says she has two books by her bed. One is a poetry book and that's the one she's loves” (195 McCourt). The
Florence Kelley delivered a speech fighting for tighter child labor laws. She spoke out against the harsh conditions children were required to work in. Kelley’s purpose of the speech was to influence a major change in the labor regulations. She conveyed her message by using repetition, diction and factual evidence.
Henry Bienen, president emeritus of Northwestern University disagrees with the premise that too many kids go to college. To support his opinion, he says that we should not use the anecdotal records of those select few like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, no matter how compelling, to generalize about the population as a whole. He professes that the argument about too many people going to college was made in the 70’s and was wrong then, and it is still wrong. He asserts that we now have lots more information and studies to support why it is wrong.
And then she goes on to mention that Miller was commenting on a book by Scott Sandage. To boost her argument that Willy Loman wasn’t a failure, she states a quote by Scott Sandage believed Willy. She is simply reinforcing her argument by stating the similar opinion of a historian who may be more qualified to make such claims, and this can be strong or take away from the argument depending on how you look at
“Wages dropped and working conditions worsened” (“Harriet Hanson Robinson”). This is why many of the valued mill girls started to fight back. Lowell, a man who ran his own mill, gave young women a safe place to live and work in ,because they were all very valuable and important to his work. He provided a safe work environment and a secure place to sleep in at night. As a mill girl, having a safe place to live in was important, but textile mills began to drop the safe and respectable ways they ran things.
Clifford Adelman states that, “Among high school students who graduated in the bottom 40 percent of their classes, and whose first institutions were four-year colleges, two-thirds had not earned diplomas eight and a half years later.” (121 qt. in Nemko) . How is this data justifying our understanding of what influences the people’s success rate?
As I look back on my journey to college, I faced many different problems and disadvantages even before taking my first steps on campus. In Linda Banks-Santilli’s “Guilt is one of the biggest struggles first-generation college students face” many first generation students view being the first one in the family as a major flaw before entering college (Banks-Santilli, 2015, Par. 4 &7). The lack of self-respect makes it difficult for students to achieve success without help or motivation. The students have to change their viewpoint about being the first to go to college in their family as a weakness and make it a strength to help motivate them to be better students.
Patricia Roberts-Miller is a Professor in the Department of Rhetoric and Writing
Betty Lenora states, “It’s not what’s going on but how we are looking at what is going on that matters”. In Brenda Miller’s essay, “The Date” she vividly depicts a single woman battling her conscious as she prepares for a date. Miller does this by featuring a self argument every paragraph. The arguments begin with her questioning herself and then furthering into dismembering each thought one by one. Miller also utilizes devices such as repetition, anecdotes, strong diction, and personification.
“On average, college graduates make significantly more money over their lifetime than those without a degree… What gets less attention is the fact that not all college degrees or college graduates are equal. ”(pg.208 para. 1) Stephanie Owen and Isabel Sawhill are senior researchers at Brookings’ Center on Children and Families, Sawhill is also a senior fellow in economics study at Brookings’. Owen and Sawhill authored the essay, “Should everyone go to College?” The authors use a wide variety of rhetorical devices in the essay, including ethos, pathos, and logos to persuade their audience to take another look at whether college is the right choice for them.
College is one of the most significant times in a person’s life. Every year high school kids will visit many different colleges so that they can be confident in their college decision. Some kids will follow in their parent’s foot steps and base their decision on where their mom or dad went, though, not all kids are fortunate to have help from their parents. Many kids nowadays may be the first in their family to take on higher education. The article, “First Generation College Students: Unprepared and Behind” by Liz Riggs explains that kids who are the first in their family to take on college are at a disadvantage compared to kids with parents who attended college.
If a person’s parent or guardian drilled the idea of college into your head, or if they told you ‘do what you want’ or ‘I don 't care’, or ‘You’re not going’. While college is great, there are other means of education. The value of college is a low because there are people who do not qualify for a college education, and also because there are other ways of post-secondary education other than college. College is not valuable because many people will not make it into a 2 or 4-year college, much less graduate from one. To support this, in the article Why College Isn 't For Everyone, it says, “As a general rule, I would use graduates in the top quarter of their class at a high-quality high school should go on to a four-year degree program, while those in the bottom quarter of their classes at a high school with a mediocre educational reputation should not.”