Reasoning of Outline
The reading gave me a clear structure that I wanted to follow in my essay. I tried to specifically hit every idea in my outline so I had a clear idea of the things that I wanted to address in my draft. The analysis and evaluation section of an argument I found particularly helpful because it showed that the two are closely related and evaluation relies heavily on analysis, but reiterated the point that both need to be differentiated so that they may be effectively addressed. The introduction section reinforced some key ideas for me like the inclusion of context and deciding how much of it to include based on your audience and the complexity of your argument. The claims section was also important because it made me want to have a clear claim in every paragraph I included. The body paragraph section created a detailed outline which I followed in my outline, including a conclusion section of each claim, which is something I occasionally overlook.
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| Casutt, Patrick "Silhouette" 9/22/15 via Flickr.com |
Introduction
General Premise: In the teetering political environment of today, liberals and conservatives are frequently at each others throats regarding any legislation suggested by either side. The matter is no different when it comes to the education system and its laws.
Rhetorical Situation: In an essay written in February as a response to the education stalemate between Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and House Republicans, the readers get a glimpse at the different political opinions surrounding education reform efforts. The essay devotes most of its time either to impressive and frightening financial statistics surrounding underprivileged and minority-heavy school districts or the opinions of different politicians regarding the impact of suggested legislation such as Title 1 Probability.
Thesis: In her analysis of Secretary of Educations Arne Duncan's responses to Republican education efforts and a press statement from Duncan regarding school funding inequality, Emma Brown refers to credible sources to enhance her own credibility and compelling statistics to dramatize the potential detriments of Republican legislation, tying it all together with passionate and critical word choice of the entire situation. With the combination of these strategies, Brown argues that the situation is at an impractical standstill, with both sides falling short of doing right by students and schools.
Body Paragraphs
Paragraph #1 (will be broken up into more paragraphs):
Rhetorical Strategy: Reference to credible sources
Claim: Brown frequently includes quotes and references to educationally involved politicians in an effort to both gain different perspectives on the matter and point out the weaknesses in both of those perspectives for her own argument, all while improving her own credibility.
Examples (perhaps make these each a focus of a paragraph):
1. "The White House is using scare tactics and budget gimmicks to kill K-12 education reform, because they know a new law will lead to less control in the hands of Washington bureaucrats and more control in the hands of parents and education leaders." Quote from John Kline, head of the House education committee."
2. "That was never the goal,” Duncan said Monday. “The goal was to fix the law for kids in 50 states and have clarity. We stepped into a leadership void, we stepped into dysfunction, because kids and teachers were being hurt. And we’ve done the best job we can. I’m sure we’ve done it imperfectly. I actually think we’ve done a pretty darn good job with it.” Quote from Arne Duncan after the statement "Wouldn't the secretary like to stay in the driver seat?
Effectiveness: The strategy is very effective in making Brown even more credible and making her audience trust her opinion on the matter of education funding. She is very particular about including both perspectives, which demonstrates a lack of bias.
Conclusion Relating to Audience and Purpose: With the use of these credible sources, she hopes to a effective pokes holes in both arguments. She presents perspectives from both political parties, making her
Paragraph #2 (will be broken up into more paragraphs):
Rhetorical Strategy: Compelling/shocking Statistics
Claim: If there is a reference to a source, Brown is quick to lead away for the opinionated nature of these references with impressive and frightening statistics that are meant to catch the reader off guard with their size and enlighten them to the potential dangers of the situation.
Examples (perhaps make these each a focus of a paragraph):
1. "For example, Detroit — where more than half of students are poor and more than 80 percent are black — would lose $265 million during the next six years, according to the Education Department’s analysis. Los Angeles, which is 31 percent poor and 74 percent Hispanic, stands to lose $782 million."
2. "Based on our analysis of FY14 data and what would have happened if those dollars were allocated under the Republican’s Title I portability proposal, the highest-poverty districts across the nation would have lost an estimated total of about $700 million in the first year of implementation,” department officials said in a statement. “Two thirds of that money would have been redirected to the lowest-poverty districts (0 to 15 percent poverty) and the remaining third would have gone to districts with 15-25 percent poverty.”
PARAPHRASE/Summarize!
Effectiveness: The numbers that she directly includes are effective in making the reader concerned for how the situation and side with her in regards to the need for change. The strategy is very effective is prompting frustration in the audience.Conclusion Relating to Audience and Purpose: Brown specifically uses impressive statistics to overwhelm the reader with sheer numbers. She doesn't intend for her audience to read every statistic she provides, but aims to generate shock and frustration at all the options politicians are looking at for education legislature.
Paragraph #3 (will be broken up into more paragraphs):
Rhetorical Strategy: Critical and passionate word choice that remains analytical
Claim: Brown consistently alternates between an informal and formal word choice throughout the essay in an effort to make the reader feel more connected to the content of the text and feel compelled to look harder into the details she is presenting, all while retaining the respect of her readers by respecting her own data and references with formal language.
Examples (perhaps make these each a focus of a paragraph):
1. The word "wonky" found in paragraph five compared with the more article word choice of the following paragraph makes the reader question the content more specifically.
2. "There are plenty of other stinking points" again conveys a level of informality and frustration at the situation.
Effectiveness: This strategy is one of the weaker ones, because it demonstrates a level of informality that can translate into disinterest from the author. However, the reader is able to look past that due to the frustration in the word choice and the passion that it prompts in them.
Conclusion Relating to Audience and Purpose: The audience is empowered by the relatable word choice and feel that the opinion of politicians are invalidate with these harsh and invalidating phrases. The word choice, however, may occasionally fail to achieve it's intended purpose and lead the reader to think that the author is too informal.
Conclusion:
Restated Thesis: Brown articulates a desire for political parties to focus all efforts onto doing whats right by students and schools by presenting references from both political perspectives and deconstructing them both. She enforces an urgency for the need for change by presenting statistics that convey the detriments of legislation. Both of these approaches are combined with condescending, frustrated word choice that relates the the feelings of the author and her readers.
Effectiveness of the Essay overall: The essay does well to prompt the reader to want change to the current situation. It stimulate a frustration based in frightening and compelling statistics, as well as the feeling of support from a credible author who the audience is siding with.
Does it achieve its goal?: Brown runs into the issue of prompting a response in her audience but failing to provide them with any direction. The audience now has feeling of frustration toward the education stalemate, but is given no guidance in how this needs to change. The best we are given is a desire to take the power government has over schools altogether and give it to states so that they might do right by their schools.
REFLECTION
After reading through the outlines of Hallye and Sam's, I found that I took a very different approach to the construction of my outline than my peers. Both Hallye and Sam constructed a brief outline of the general ideas of their essays, while I went very in depth of every idea I wanted to address and the evidence I wanted to use. This difference isn't bad, per say, it just means that I wanted to go into the draft with a little more construction than they did. Sam took a particularly interesting approach to the body outline including a specific claim that the body as a whole would address, rather than multiple claims that different parts of the body would tackle. Hallye had a slightly denser intro and thesis section that resembled mine slightly, but she had a more list-like body construction. Both did not include specific evidence from the article.
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