Short Assignment Four

Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Form

Ida B. Wells-Barnett in “Lynch Law in America” is trying to persuade her readers to treat blacks and whites equally in America. She wishes that everyone would be given the opportunity to have a fair trial before they are punished for the wrongs that they may or may not have committed. The form that Well-Barnett uses is how she gets her point across to her readers. I think Ross Winterowd would feel that by placing her paragraphs in the order that she does with each transformational unit in cohesive order going back to events that have happened, to events that are happening, and then moving on to events that should happen, forms her article, and helps persuade the reader to feel the way she does on the equality topic.

Part Two:

I think it would be really interesting to study the discourse of homelessness—has there been an increase, why? What areas in America is homelessness more prevalent? Whose fault is it? I think my genre samples would have to come from a variety of different sources—some stating why it is the persons’ fault that they are homeless, some blaming the government and decreases in employment, and then some from examples of people that either were or are homeless in today’s society. In order to make these types of genres effective, I will have to make sure I do not fall into one extreme decision or another. I need to follow the rules of Kenneth Burke, and step back, hesitate, and exam each and every symbol and view point.

The 11th Hour, and The Stases

The 11th Hour is a very powerful, and moving piece. Not only is this piece enlightening, but it also follows Jeanne Fahnestock and Marie Secor's basic stases model. The first question that this stases model answers is the question of fact; in other words, "What is it?" This question is answered throughout the film, but it is strongly mentioned in the beginning when the narrator, experts, and clips show how human society and humans' creations are destroying nature. The experts go into great detail about how if we destroy nature, we will also be destroyed. They do a very good job defining what is currently happening to our earth's climate.

The second stases question in Fahnestock and Secor's model is the question of fact, "How extensive is their use" (Fahnestock 429). This movie shows many facts about our earth. First off, they have evidence to back each one of their claims about the dissolving climate and of the increase in global warming. They tell these facts to the audience, but then they back them up with real life events; for instance, the ice caps are melting. They even show a chart that reflects the change in temperatures that we have witnessed during the last decade. Because these facts are visually seen, and backed up with much evidence, they can be seen as facts.

Next is the question of cause, "What brought them about or what is their history? or What are their effects?" (Fahnestock 429). The question of cause is answered from beginning to end in this movie. The experts, as well as the narrator, state how humans are using too many resources at the same time. This is the main cause for our climate decline. They say how we rely too much on oil and energy, which is causing pollution to be outrageous. Another cause of this problem is the pollution that is going into the ocean. This waste is wrecking our ocean and killing sea life.

The forth stasis is evaluation, "Are they a good or bad policy?" (Fahnestock 429). The answer to this is obvious from the beginning of this movie--no, what is going on now in our world is not a good thing. The pollution is killing our wildlife, and putting all nature at risk. Throughout the whole film, the experts are attempting to sway human beings against doing the things that they are doing, and trying to make the environment more green. They evaluate this issue by showing the negative aspects of the pollution and global warming. One very vivid negative that they mention is the increase in childhood diseases and cancers. The reason this is so vivid is because after mentioning it, we see clips of sick children. This is a very powerful scene that clearly shows that the evaluation of this issue is not good.

The last stasis level question is the proposal, "Should they be continued, expanded, reduced, eliminated?" (Fahnestock 429). The last bit of the movie is really just proposals of what we could do better as a society. They propose many solutions like transferring away from oil use, become a reuse economy, and begin using more energy from the sun. As they said in the movie, there is enough energy in the sun to fuel everything on earth more than once. This definitely seems to be a plausible solution to our problem. The experts also propose the we begin shifting the way we act, and let us know that we do have a choice in our actions.

As Fahnestock and Secor say, "Another way to look at the stases is to see them as sitting between the general outline of an argument, applicable to all arguments regardless of field" (Fahnestock 429). This statements seems to be very true. In their article,"The Stases in Scientific and Literary Argument," they seem to be talking about writing arguments, but their stases level questions work wonders for a spoken argument as well.

Extra Blogging Activity

Question 1:

One conflict that I have had within the passed year has been about the war that we are currently in with the middle east. My husband and I have differing views on this subject. I admire each and every soldier that has been, are, and will be over seas serving our country--it is definitely a very brave a noble deed. I also believe that we have done quite a lot of good things over there that benefit the locals in Iraq and Afghanistan. The news doesn't give us all of the positive information, it tends to focus on the negative things that go on there. However, I don't feel that our soldiers should still be in either place of war. I understand that we cannot just let them go home right away, it has to be done gradually--I just feel it should have been done already.

My husband, on the other hand, believes that we should stay over there until our job is done in both areas. We have had war debates a few times, but they never come to a clear conclusion. I would say that we have a level three conflict. We both give weight to different issues. He is in the military, and just came back in July from a year deployment in Afghanistan, so he obviously has personal experience to weigh in on his decisions. I think I put the weight on how our economy is, and how we need to  be concentrating on making it better. Although, we don't come to a clear conclusion, we both understand and accept one another's opinions--in fact, we decided before he actually left for deployment not to have this type of discussions.

Question 2:

The analogy, "Sproul Hall is to student rights as Mississippi is to civil rights" relates to Mario Savio's allusion, "in the world, but not of the world" in an interesting way that helps to prove one of his claims. The analogy is saying how Sproul Hall claims to have student rights, but students still lack things like the right to free speech, and the right to speak directly to higher administration. Mississippi claims to have civil rights, but there are still discriminatory acts.

The allusion mentioned above relates to the concept of this analogy. We see this relation when we think of the interpretation of the analogy. In other words, like free speech, student rights, and civil rights can be in the world, but they can not define it. This goes along with Savio's claim that the bureaucrats feel history has ended, and feel no new changes can truly be made to society. By stating this analogy and allusion, Savio is showing how the bureaucrats feel that these changes can be in the world, but they won't change in 'their world'--they will disregard these new changes.

Question 4:

While reading Robert Bullard's article, we can see how he is writing in the stasis of cause. As Fahnestock and Secor state this stasis answers the questions, "What brought them about, and what is their history?" and "What are their effects? (429). This seems to be the best way to write this article because it steers the article away from being completely polarized. He does mention some fact about the disaster, but he stays away from value and procedure. By doing this, he cannot be accused of taking a clear side either way. He wants the reader to decide what they should do about the racial situation.

Ida B. Well-Barnett and Mario Savio make this same strategy work in the same way as Bullard. They also write mostly in the stasis of cause. They are both trying to get the readers to stop something (lynching and bureaucracy), but they do it in a way that does not polarize the text. This is a great strategy that seems to cause more readers to read and understand the texts.

Seeing David S. Kaufer's Level 5 Conflict

David S. Kaufer makes some very valid recommendations in his method on how to write an argument on public policy in his article "A Plan for Teaching the Development of Original Policy Arguments." I believe that his method is very informative, and it does make the student think when developing their arguments. It also creates a strong foundation for one to prove their point on almost any argument. However, it seems that his whole method cannot be followed in every case. We see a particular instance of this in S. Andrew Ostapski, L. Wayne Plumly, and J.L. Love's article, "The Ethical and Economic Implications of Smoking in Enclosed Public Facilities: A Resolution of Conflicting Rights."

First of all, Kaufer believes that we should use stock issues when writing our arguments; "Stock issues are points of disagreement that recur regularly when people deliberate on questions of justice or public policy" (Kaufer 57). This is one aspect of Kaufer's method that Ostapski's article does follow. The three authors chose a very controversial topic--public smoking. Should public smoking be banned? Should it be segregated? We see how this is a stock issue from the very beginning when the authors describe the background and why this is a controversy, "passive inhalation [of smoking] has contributed to the declining health of non-users, who are exposed to this product" (Ostapski 377). Kaufer feels that while arguing for your stock issue, you should choose one of his sources or levels of conflict, "It is useful to think of these five sources of conflict in hierarchical terms, as "levels" of conflict that become more encompassing (harder to resolve) as one proceeds from level 1 to 5" (Kaufer 58). We see the development of the argument during the background information, and when they speak about the intervention, which includes whether or not smoking should be completely banned in public spaces.

Another step of Kaufer's method that the ethical article follows is how the student or writer should be able to see and understand both sides of the article, "At this point students have familiarized themselves with the adversaries' conflicting reasons for arguing one way or another" (Kaufer 60). Both sides of smoking is seen in many cases throughout this article, they tell how advocates that would like to ban or restrict smoking in enclosed areas feel "that it is needed to prevent the harmful health effects of passive cigarette smoke. Smokers insist that smoking is no different from other lifestyle choices of varying risks, which should be a matter of personal choice" (Ostapski 378). This quote, along with many others show how both smokers and non-smokers feel about the issue at hand.

Although there are many similarities mentioned above between the article and Kaufer's method, there are also many differences. We begin seeing the differences during the competing analogies step. Kaufer feels that the students should use  "analogies to previous cases resolved in their favor" (Kaufer 62) to prove their argument. We do not really see competing analogies in the ethical article. I believe this is due to Kaufer's level of conflict scale. At least as of 1997, when this article was written, there was no concrete solution to the problem, which would cause this article to be beyond a level four conflict.

As said, I believe that the conflict of the ethical article goes beyond Kaufer's level four, but I don't feel that it goes all the way to a level five. At this time, there is not a conclusion that can be drawn due to the conflicting views on local values. This 'local values' statement is why this argument does not qualify as a complete level 5 conflict--level five involves "global values." Even though, this is a small difference, I would give this conflict level a 4.5, with conflict in local values, and no solution.

Lastly, Kaufer believes that after finding competing analogies, one should find their resolution to the conflict at hand. Although, the authors of the smoking article cannot do this due to the conflict level, they do draw on some solutions that they feel would be useful. These particular solutions are drawn from examples of an indoor sports facility. One solution they draw is that "Lower-deck seating could be classified as non-smoking and upper-deck seating could be designated smoking areas" (Ostapski 383).

As seen throughout this whole comparison, there are times when Kaufer's method cannot be used. We also see that there are conflict levels seen between the levels that he gives us. These things are definitely worth thinking of when constructing public policy arguments.

Kaufer, David S. "A Plan for Teaching the development of Original Policy Arguments." College Composition and Communication 35.1 (Feb 1984): 57-70

Ostapski, S. Andrew, Plumly, L. Wayne, Love, J.L. "The Ethical and Economic Implications of Smoking in Enclosed Public Facilities: A Resolution of Conflicting Rights. Journal of Business Ethics Vol. 16. No 4. (Mar 1997). 377-384.

Jonah Lehrer's Writing With a John D. Ramage Touch

There are many different ways one can get their point across. Some people feel that there are scientific methods to writing, and John D. Ramage is one of these people. In fact, his method is seen in Jonah Lehrer's article, "The Future of Reading." Ramage feels that one should begin with answering the, "What's your point?" question, which Lehrer does. He also uses Ramage's stases theory, which has five different questions. He feels that "Proposing answers to these questions and responding to others' answers to these questions constitute our point; and our immediate purpose is to make that point with an audience" (Ramage 103). Lehrer does this, and in the following paragraphs, we will see how.

The first question that Ramage feels should be addressed is, "What is this thing?" Lehrer answers this question in the very first paragraph; obviously, the 'thing' in the text is the digital book. This question/answer combination is pretty straightforward, and it leads into the next question in Ramage's model, "How much is this thing like/unlike that thing?" This resemblance question is certainly conquered by Lehrer's writing. He spends most of the article comparing books and digital books. In order to get the attention of the audience, he compares digital books to i-pods, pod casts, ect. to the radio, which is not used as often these days due to these technological developments. He then goes into his personal thoughts about books to his apprehensions of digital books, which is a great comparison method. After this, he takes a turn by stating advantages of the digital book, "It's never been easier to buy books, read books, or read about books you might want to buy. How can that not be good?" (Lehrer). Finally, to grab the audience even more, he states his 'nagging problem' with books in digital form, "My problem is that consumer technology moves in a single direction: It's constantly making it easier for us to perceive content" (Lehrer). Stating these variations show how these two things have likes and differences.

This last quote also answers the third question in Ramage's method, "Why did this thing happen?" Lehrer is alluding to the fact that digital books were created due to accessibility and ease. That is what Ramage would say "motivated its occurrence." Lehrer mentions many things that answer Ramage's forth question, "How good or bad is this thing?" Ramage would say that Lehrer uses the evaluative term of 'bad' in his article, which is a verb. Although, Lehrer states that the accessibility and ease of the digital book is a good thing (quote mentioned above), he finds that the ultimate idea of it is bad. He shows this opinion when he says, "making content easier and easier to see -- could actually backfire with books. We will trade away understanding for perception. The words will shimmer on the screen, but the sentences will be quickly forgotten" (Lehrer). He accepts the ease of the digital book, he even admits to using his Kindle at night because it is so easy; however, he feels that this idea will make the readers get less out of the text that they are reading, "I worry that, before long, we'll become so used to the mindless clarity of e-ink -- to these screens that keep on getting better -- that the technology will feedback onto the content, making us less willing to endure harder texts" (Lehrer). In other words, Lehrer feels that if the reader continues to read the high definition digital books, they will no longer want to challenge themselves.

Finally, Ramage's last question, "What should we do about this thing?" is also answered in "The Future of Reading." Lehrer comes right out and says, "So here's my wish for e-readers. I'd love them to include a feature that allows us to undo their ease, to make the act of reading just a little bit more difficult. Perhaps we need to alter the fonts, or reduce the contrast" (Lehrer). He clearly states what should be done about this issue on digital books, he feels that we should make the picture not quite as clear, that way, "We won't just scan the words -- we will contemplate their meaning" (Lehrer) therefore, getting more out of the text.

Although, all reading is not written scientifically--all reading does have some form of organized (hopefully) arrangement. If an author is attempting to construct a persuasive article/text, I definitely feel that they should lay their writing out scientifically. Posing and answering the questions that Ramage has listed is a great way to organize a report, article, or any persuasive text. It not only walks the reader step-by-step through what is going on with the issue and why, but it also helps the author sway the audience into thinking the way that they do.

Different Aims and Genres of Texts

Although, Kinneavy may see many different genre categories in the text "One day, Now Broken in Two" by Anna Quindlen--I do not see a set genre for the whole text. This text, which speaks about the events that happened on September 11, 2001 seems to have a mixture of three different genres. I see the following three genres blurred together to make one text: memorial, reflection, and persuasion. I believe that Quindlen shows these three genres very explicitly. Memorial is shown throughout her writing, one example is when she says, "The American People used their own simple routines to muffle the horror they felt looking at the indelible loop of tape--the plane, the flames, the plane, the fire, the falling bodies, the falling buildings." This excerpt describing 9-11 illustrates the way memory comes into play in the text. She also uses reflection with her own experiences, and with her family, "September 11 is my eldest child's birthday." Lastly, I see persuasion many times in Quindlen's writing; this is obviously shown here, "We are people of two minds now, the one that looks forward and the one that unwillingly and unexpectedly flashes back." By using the term 'we,' she is putting herself into the equation, but she is also telling her audience how they feel or how they should feel about the past and present.

Just like the many genres, this text also shows more than one of Kenneavy's 'Basic Purposes of Composition' principles. First and far most, Quindlen's text is quite referential--I believe that Kinneavy would agree with this. He describes this principle as "Discourse dominated by subject matter (reality talked about) is called referential discourse" (301). The piece is definitely driven by the subject of 9-11--that is the basis of the whole text. Kinneavy splits this referential standard into three parts: exploratory, which asks questions; informative, which answers questions; scientific, which proves the answer. Looking at Kinneavy's definitions of these three categories, I would determine that this text could fall under any category. Quindlen asks many questions in this article, which could cause this article to be exploratory, "Who are we now?" She is asking who we are as United States citizens. She also answers these questions, "We are people whose powers have been challenged by the revelations of the careful planning..." Although, this article does not show nearly as much of the scientific side of things--Quindlen does prove her answers, at least as she views them. She also brings in the optimist's, pessimist's, and the realist's views to prove her point. Although, Kinneavy may not agree with my thought here, I can view this text as also having scientific qualities.

From what has been said, it can be thought that Anna Quindlen writes quite a referential piece, I can also say that her piece is quite persuasive. Kinneavy says persuasive discourse is "discourse which focusses on eliciting a specific reaction from the decoder and is dominated by this request for reaction emerges as persuasion or rhetoric" (301). Although, I feel that the persuasiveness of Quindlen comes second to her referential style, she definitely has a persuasive flair to her writing. You especially see this in the very last sentence when she states, "That is the way we have to live, or we cannot really go on living at all." She is swaying the audience to go on living in two parts after the 9-11 attack, to remember 9-11, but know that September 11 is still a normal day on the calendar.

Lastly, with such subject matter, it is important to take a look at Quindlen's audience. She is certainly talking to American citizens. This article would not be effective if it was read by someone who lives in another country. Although, they may feel for the United States--they will not be able to relate to the actual 9-11 attacks. Quindlen relates to her audience by putting herself in her writing, by using the term 'we' instead of 'you,' and by being an American herself. This scenario makes Kinneavy's triangle very easily put together, we have the encoder, who is Anna Quindlen, the American, the decoder, which is the readers--also Americans, and the reality, which is 9-11.

In conclusion, it is easy to see that "One Day, Now Broken in Two" follows two of Kinneavy's key principles, referential and persuasive. This proves that his strategies are not static, in fact, there are many genres that could fit into all of his standards. We can also conclude that this article would not be nearly as powerful if read by a non-U.S. citizen, it needs to have an audience that can relate to the reality that it is speaking of.

Keeping Writing Honest

"Honesty is Always the Best Policy" by Michael Lemonick

Michael Lemonick  uses deliberative rhetoric in his article "Honesty is Always the Best Policy" to prove that keeping the truth in one's writing is the best course of action when writing to an audience. You see his deliberative movements many times throughout his text when he attempts to sway the reader to think like he does. Along with his deliberative rhetoric, he also appears to have an epideictic undertone when speaking about truthful science writing, which is when one uses "ceremonial discourse used to create and reinforce community values" (Selzer 284). You see this undertone when he speaks about his writing "I loved this story--it was about the physical sciences, it was clearly a big deal, and it was new and surprising to me."

Lemonick demonstrates the positive outcomes that using ethos effectively can do for one's writing. He connects with the audience by establishing his credibility on the topic of honesty in writing by using his experiences, writing about science--mostly global warming. He does this by beginning his article stating what he does, and why he does it. This elocutio (arrangement) is a great way to allow the readers to follow more closely. He slowly leads up to the topic of honesty in writing--giving the reader ample time to understand what is taking place in the text.

He also uses ethos by showing the ways that he uses truth in his own writing, "I'm still refining my own sense of judgement, weighing when it's important to give a study's weaknesses prominence and when to mention them on the side, focusing instead on the broader truth that climate change is real and potentially dangerous." Lemonick is also seen using the Aristotelian term pathos when talking directly to the audience about telling the truth in writing. By speaking directly to them, he is building a relationship, and showing them how honesty is a community value. Using this term assists Lemonick in persuading the audience to believe that honesty really is the best policy.

As we can see, Lemonick uses ethos and pathos to persuade his audience to write and read honest work. These tools are very well suited for this article because they both aid in connecting to the readers; therefore, making it easier to sway their thoughts one way or the other.