Rhetorical Analysis Of Against Schools By John Gatto

Emotional, ethical, and logical appeals are all methods used in writing to perused you one way or another on various topics. Mike Rose used all of these techniques in this essay, to show how student who are pushed aside, distracted, or fall behind and fail. In this essay Rose describes that students who have teachers who are unprepared, or incompetent majorly contribute to student failure. He is trying to show that many children have potential that is overlooked or sometimes even ignored, by authority.

In school, there are always those who do not understand the content in class, but get by with passing grades. In Mary Sherry’s essay, “In Praise of the F Word”, she writes about how in the American school system students get passed along without any consideration for their pace or skill level (Sherry, 564-566). Sherry also discusses how unprepared the American public is after high school and college (Sherry, 564). In, “In Praise of the F word”, Sherry also discusses her own son and one of his experiences in his high school (Sherry, 565). The content of “In Praise of the F word” was very persuasive, as Sherry effectively utilizes the aristotelian appeals. She uses ethos effectively to build trust in her message. The ethos or trust built in Sherry was effective in persuading the audience about her credibility. The examples used in Sherry’s essay relate to her own experience with the topics on hand. The

Some may say that educational systems are superior, however, some can argue that the educational system needs a change. Francine Prose’s purpose in “I Know Why The Caged Bird Cannot Read” stood out clearly, to inform parents on how the current system of education is ineffective to young learners. Her use of words, ethos, logos and pathos appeals to educators and students to inspire change in their education standards.

A talk to teachers, written by James Baldwin, criticises the education system in the mid-1900s by directly sending a message to teachers about the flaws in the system. He argues that race should not hinder equality or the quality of education a child receives. Baldwin uses tone and diction that highlights the importance of his message. In addition, he uses several persuasion tactics to convince his audience of his ideas.

Mike Rose shares his personal story to the public in “I just wanna be average”, as he reveals the many flaws within the educational system of a high school in an economically depressed neighborhood in Los Angeles. He effectively directs his arguments towards both educators and parents by utilizing emotional and logical appeals. By convincing the audience to fear that children placed on remedial tracks are being hindered rather than assisted, the author causes both awareness and a feeling of duty to change the way we handle teaching children.

“Hidden Intellectualism,” by Gerald Graff starts off with an older argument between being book smart and street smart. Throughout the reading, Graff uses his own life experiences to critique the education system today. Points made focus on the idea of overlooking the intellectual potential of those who come across as being, “street smart”. Different authors cited in the reading to show how to accept another’s different intellectual. However, we realize that people who come across as being intellectual weren’t always labeled as that.

In “I Just Wanna Be Average,” Mike Rose explains the experience being part of a school system that had no prior knowledge to have educators to teach students. Rose supports his claims by describing the different situations he had to encounter with the lack of the school system, the hopelessness of the teachers and his peers, that lead those students with no support to lead them in a direction of success. Rose purpose is to point out that; all that it was needed was a teacher that cared enough to teach and to influence those students to succeed and to never hinder the student’s learning experience because anything is possible with an little of an encouragement.

Gerald Graff’s “Hidden Intellectualism” goes through many reasons why not being book smart could be a good thing. The sports world is a way of people connecting through the competitive sports that always lead to some sort of debate (268). Graff grew up always liking sports and being “street smart” living in Chicago. He always read sports magazines growing up and realized that reading magazines was a good tactic for schools to teach street smart kids how to write good essays based on their hobbies of reading magazines (265). “What doesn’t occur to us, is that schools and colleges might be at fault for missing the opportunity to tap into such street smarts and channel them into good academic work”(264).

Annie Lowrey’s article,” Why Can’t the Government make it Easier to Compare College Costs?” published in Slate magazine is a genuine urge to the Government to take action by simplifying the college application process. This is a very cautiously written article to discuss the need of a College Scorecard for students. Why do I say “Cautious”? Ms. Lowrey’s has a warped attitude towards the colleges and universities. This is evidenced strongly allover the article. I strongly believe that Ms. Lowrey has denied the existence of colleges with their own professors and administration.

“The Privileges of The Parents” is written by Margaret A. Miller, a Curry School of Education professor at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. This woman was a project director for the Pew-sponsored National Forum on college level learning from 2002-2004. This forum assessed the skills and knowledge of college educated students in five states by a way that allowed the test givers to make state-by-state comparisons. Miller believes that “[a] college education has benefits that ripple down through the generations” and this has enabled her to work and speak on topics such as: college level learning and how to evaluate it, change in higher education, the public responsibilities of higher education, campus

Neil Postman and Wendell Berry state that twentieth-century Americans are losing literacy and the ability to read and write, which weakens our ability to think for ourselves. Reading, writing, and thinking are connected through everyday life and as English speakers, it is our responsibility to preserve and correctly exercise the truth and validity of the English language. With the dependency on technology, relaxed educational standards, and even potential government control, we become stripped of our independence of thinking. With no free will to think, we are vulnerable to dominance and corruption, inability to argue complexly, oversimplification, and conformity.

What is school really trying to do with our lives? The article “Against School” by John Taylor Gatto is an article that talks about the problem of schools and how the goals are not what they say they are. First. the author talks about how the school system creates boredom and what could be done to fix it. He then talks about how school is not needed in its required class times, what the schools say the goals are for the students, and where our school system originated from. Next, he talks about who helped create the system we use today, and what the goals are for the schools in 6 functions. Finally, he talked about how the schools teach students to perform certain tasks in the future, how mandatory schooling made students not think about what

Gerald Graff’s argument on how educational systems are missing a great opportunity to tap into “street smarts” and focus them into a path of academic work is indeed convincing (Graff, 198). After all, anyone who’s been through the American educational system knows odds are often stacked against the “street smarts.” This is especially true in english classes, where one is often required to read boring and somewhat heartless books like, 1984, Beowulf, and the majority of Shakespeare’s classics. This is not to say these books are bad or shouldn’t be read during one’s schooling years, instead, the problem is one of apathy. For instance, in my high school years I never even remotely liked to read books Othello, but I loved to read magazines and

The essay “In Praise of the ‘F’ Word” by Mary Sherry explains some flaws Sherry has noticed in our education system. These observations are from her teaching perspective, and from her son’s own experience in high school. Sherry claims that some students that have earned a high school degree should not have because they are “semi literate.” She starts out her essay by stating this bluntly, but further explains herself as it goes on.

Charles Baxter’s “Gryphon” provides an interesting look at standardized education and the way society views those who deviate from it. Baxter shows this through how the narrator Tommy views his new substitute, Miss Ferenczi. The character Miss Ferenczi tries to revolt against the clinical and strict standards of society and positively impact the morality and ethicality of herself, Tommy, and the fourth graders.