Being trained on how to analyze properly and how to recognize rhetorical appeals has opened my eyes to so much I did not see before. Never would I have thought about the immense amount of effort and strategy that goes into every single part of essays such as “Waking up and taking charge”. Just in one paragraph I can now see a bunch of differently little strategies used to try to get us on her side

Summary: Kamenetz proposes an argument about the need for change in young adult’s circumstances and how the need can be met by student activism. She hits on problems such as college debt and credit card debt. She gives many examples of how student activism has brought about change

Claim: I believe Kamentez’s essay “waking up and taking charge” lacks some credible quality because it is outdated, she provides examples that could be interpreted different ways, and she sounds a little biased at times.

hw 9/17:

-My first response to “Waking up and Taking Charge” is that it sounds like it was written in the early 2000s because those are the years they reference. If this is the case, then I wonder how reliable the information is. Since then have there been more student led programs that fight for these issues? If so, were the results the same? I believe that these issues have been more addressed at least since this time period. The awareness of it has definitely risen, as the prices have gotten even higher and higher and many more college students in America started going into large amounts of debt, it has become an issue that any college freshman knows about and can not ignore.

• I definitely agree with the point that college students put large amounts of effort into rallying for really large scale international problems but they don’t put nearly as much of an effort into rallying for their own financial wellness. She makes it sound like these international campaigns are a waste of time and that students need to be fighting for their own security instead of focusing on others’ issues. So I don’t necessarily agree with how she worded that part. I believe these two kind of campaigns are completely independent of each other.
• Overall, I think she does a good job of showing the effectiveness of student activism. She provides many examples of students in America and in other countries rallying for things to be fair and willing to talk at a table. She shows results of this: officials have brought in more state budgets for schooling and other real effective changes for the trajectory of a college graduates’ financial wellness.

-After our class discussion and our reading, I learned what a qualifier is. The article does contain many of them, which makes me trust and and appreciate it a little more. “Even if a legislative reform is years in coming, a vocal activist campaign about the dangers of student loans could accomplish a lot,”.

Summary of analysis: The essay is outdated and this changes the effectiveness of the points that she makes. I think the awareness of these issues has gone up immensely since back then. Some of the examples she provides are weak. Her example of how students are campaigning for the wrong things is a solid point but she fails to mention that what students campaign for are independent of each other.

Rhetorical appeals examples: were they effective:

Style: Rolled over by greedy middle-aged and older people” page 408

Character: “If you’re like me, you’re a little impatient with the political sphere of action” page 408

Emotion: “Of we young people don’t march on our own behalf, who will march for us?” page 410

Logic: “End 29% annual interest rates so that twenty something earning $12,000 a year are no longer profitable customers for $10,000 lines of credit” page 409

Strengths and Weaknesses of “Waking up and Taking Charge”

This essay provides many examples of the movement that she is encouraging. But a lot of her examples she provides only halfway prove it, or there are confounding variables in the examples that actually work against her point and reveal some of the arguments’ weaknesses. She provides examples of how student activism has been effective in Canada and other countries but doesn’t regard how political systems are set up differently. Maybe in one country it is part of their standard to listen to young people as much as they listen to elderly and seasoned people and in another country that is not the case regardless of how much student activism there is. In her Yale example, the only people that it benefited are families who earn less than $45,000 a year which she states is roughly 10% of the school. If she is trying to prove how student activism will make a change that benefits a range of people, then this is a bad example.

Rhetorical Appeals:

Style:”Actually read those endless email alerts?”

“Next time you see the Discover Card Table, RUN the other way!”

Emotion: “Young people urgently need a strong national government movement”

“They remind students that they don’t deserve to be priced out”

Character: “If you’re like me, you’re a little impatient with the politcal sphere of action”

What I would tell to someone about the essay: I would say that the essence of the essay is the rhetorical appeal of logic with a few sprinkles of the other appeals. That being said, I pay most attention to her appeal of logic since that’s where she’s mainly trying to poke the reader. I agree with her 100% about there needing to be change in many aspects of young peoples’ lives and I also agree that we should do everything we can to make that change. Especially since no one else will, it’s our responsibility to be informed and take a stand. So the warrant is that there is a problem there and it needs to be solved by us young folks. She doesn’t provide the strongest logic about the way we should to that though, which is what the whole essay is about.

Claim: Re

aders think this essay is about the effectiveness of student activism but it’s really about

-My first response to “Waking up and Taking Charge” is that it sounds like it was written in the early 2000s because those are the years they reference. If this is the case, then I wonder how reliable the information is. Since then have there been more student led programs that fight for these issues? If so, were the results the same? I believe that these issues have been more addressed at least since this time period. The awareness of it has definitely risen, as the prices have gotten even higher and higher and many more college students in America started going into large amounts of debt, it has become an issue that any college freshman knows about and can not ignore.

• I definitely agree with the point that college students put large amounts of effort into rallying for really large scale international problems but they don’t put nearly as much of an effort into rallying for their own financial wellness. She makes it sound like these international campaigns are a waste of time and that students need to be fighting for their own security instead of focusing on others’ issues. So I don’t necessarily agree with how she worded that part. I believe these two kind of campaigns are completely independent of each other.
• Overall, I think she does a good job of showing the effectiveness of student activism. She provides many examples of students in America and in other countries rallying for things to be fair and willing to talk at a table. She shows results of this: officials have brought in more state budgets for schooling and other real effective changes for the trajectory of a college graduates’ financial wellness.

-After our class discussion and our reading, I learned what a qualifier. The article does contain many of them, which makes me trust and and appreciate it a more. “Even if a legislative reform is years in coming, a vocal activist campaign about the dangers of student loans could accomplish a lot,”.

Annotations of chapter 3 pages 39-49

-What is the credibility of a contemporary philosopher in effective arguing?

-Kohn: an outspoken critic of grading students. He’s an expert in education. If he is an “expert” in education, I wonder if he became an expert by being in environments that he wasn’t judged on his work. How did his personal background influence how he feels

-The warrant is something the author assumes you already agree with. In this example he assumes that you agree that critical thinking is a valuable part of getting an education.

• it says that warrants in arguments are usually things that are mostly common sense type of stuff but is there really such thing as common sense? What is the standard

-page 41 The examples:

-1: warrant: It is important that students learn what they need to learn regardless of their own will

-2: warrant: Competition in the classroom is dangerous

-3: Good grades in college are more important than good grades in high school

Qualifier: A way of making your claim more refined so that it isn’t stated as universally true. This makes it less likely for audience to point out flaws if you have already mentioned them

“in most cases” “On the whole”

• What’s the balance between using a qaulifier and becoming too wordy and passive?

Let’s be Blunt: It’s time to end the Drug War

-He includes no qualifiers. He states it as it is universally true. He literally says, “should be drugs be legal? The answer is yes.” This does take away from his argument because he almost has a prideful voice and that makes it hard for audience to listen and consider

-Claim: Drugs, -specifically marijuana- should be legalized

-Reason: The demand for drugs doesn’t go away or decrease regardless of prices increasing

-evidience: “the more effective prohibition is at raising costs, the greater are the drug industry revenues,” – Cowen and Tabarrok

-Reason: Catching the “Big guys” won’t stop the war on drugs

-Evidence: Apple carried on after Steve Jobs died.

-Reason: we are trying to “win” the war on drugs and that is impossible

-Evidence: Albert Einstein said insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results

Warrant: It is more important that we have less violence and less conflict than ensuring drug rates don’t go up

-He makes a point that the war on drugs is ineffective because as the prices go up, people stay consistent because they are addicted. There is a fault in this because He is mainly arguing over marijuana and marijuana is not necessarily addictive.

Annotations of “Waking up and Taking Charge”

-Claim: Young adults need to be more active in fighting back things that effect them so much

-Reason: Students could make real effective changes

-Evidence: Students at William and Mary college helped pass a $900 million state bond issue and the coalition went statewide

-The shared topic of the two arguments is that it has to do with matters that effect the lives of today’s young adults long term financially as well as other weighty effects.

-Their solutions do differ very much. In “Waking up and taking charge”, it’s all about young adults needing to take their stance and fight for their voice in matters that directly effect them very much. In “College Debt: Necessary Evil or Ponzi Scheme”, the solution that’s suggested is to not try to change the system that is causing the problems but rather it suggests that young adults take a different route and to abandon the ideas of the messed up college system as a whole and try trade school.

Claim: Young adults should be protesting against the financial crisises that they are inheriting

Reason: Students protesting and making a stand against the financial crisises can make a true impact in

Warrant: Young adults are manipulated into spending money they don’t have and that is wrong

Evidence: One week after a sit-in at Yale, they announces that they woudn’t expect tuition from families earning less than $45,000 a year

Counterargument: Governers and high officials won’t listen to the voices of young people

Rebuttal: With effective student activism, officials are likely to listen 

Appeal:Appeal of style

page number: 402

snippet of sentence: “‘the prevailing wisdom’ is often dead wrong”

page number: 403

snippet:” Few people can afford that, but no problem. This is America!”

Appeal: reason

page number: 403

snippet:”get in the best school you can and then make the big bucks when you get out. But is this real?”

Appeal: Character-trust of author:

Page number: 403

snippet:”When I attended Tulane university back in the 70’s…”

claim: to persuade audience that sports should be acknowledged in academics

-reason: Music and art offer a lot of different majors but sports don’t. Many of the skills that are used for music and art are also used for sports. They are not treated with the same level of acknowledgement either.

Evidence: Yale’s theater studies course guide drama students learn a “complex cultural practice and combine practical training with theory and history, while stressing creative critical thinking”. This is what sports do as well

Evidence: Athletes devote as much time to their craft as artists do. 

Evidence: We tell music students that regardless of their failures, they have acquired something really valuable and should keep going but we tell athletes with big goals that they are impractical. 

Question 1 for “College debt”: He presents many reasons for a college degrees’ value going down such as the amount of people who are going to college are increasing. Because of that a college degree doesn’t offer the value it used to such as setting you apart in the working world. We can determine the cost of the degree isn’t worth it and probably won’t pay off based on statistics and evidence of many college graduates who are just in debt and don’t know what to do.

Annotations of “A major gain for college sports”

-Offering atheletes a degree in sports would broaden AND deepen their understanding of what they do. They should be offered that opportunity just like anyone else. There is SO much value in getting to understand all aspects of what you are passionate about

-After making sports more available in an academic sense, there will probably so many gateways opened in the industry that no one knew could be opened

-Why should athletes have to be faced with “you have to be elite enough to go pro and make millions off of it or you can’t do it at all”

-Claim: Athletics should be more acknowledged in the academic world.

-reasons: Music and art offer a lot of different majors but sports don’t. Many of the skills that are used for music and art are also used for sports. They are not treated with the same level of acknowledgement either.

Evidence: They devote as much time to their craft as artists do.

Evidence: We tell music students that regardless of their failures, they have acquired something really valuable and should keep going but we tell athletes with big goals that they are impractical.

Reason: College sports exist to merely please donors and raise universities’ rankings. They are treated as unpaid labor, not valuable students.

Evidence: Schools give limited academic credits for varsity participation

Evidence: They don’t get to have the option of education in all the different dimensions of what they do

Words to look up:

intercollegiate: existing or conducted between colleges or universities.

Salvageable: capable of being saved from ruin

commerce: the activity of buying and selling, especially on a large scale.

Claim: A college degree nowadays more likely equates to a liability than an asset for most people. We’ve been feeding this generation with the concept that going to school working hard and graduating college means success. It does not have the same value that is used to.

reason: Because of the success our parents had from getting a degree, college became more common and became much more complex and much more expensive.

Evidence: Nowadays it’s not enough just get into college. It has to be a high ranking school for it to have a decent amount of value.

Evidence: the better the college, the higher the price tag. Back in the 70’s at Tulane university, room and board was $2,500 a year and now it’s $60,000.

Reason: College used to open doors that otherwise would not be available, but now that is not necessarily true.

Evidence: Not uncommon for a guy with a masters’ degree paying off his student loan debt to be working next to a guy who has his GED. Only difference is one guy has 5 figures in debt to pay back.

Evidence: Many graduate still not knowing what they want to do in life

Evidence: The student debt weighs a fresh graduate down so much that the first thing they have to worry about out of college is repaying their debt, not finding a career.

Evidence: The national student loan debt is $1 trillion.