The Truth About College

The Article "NYU Professor: Are Student Loans Immoral?", by Andrew Ross, in Wordle format.  Click here to read the article, and click on the picture to zoom in.

     It can seem like high school is primarily about getting into college, especially to eleventh grade students.  But what happens when you’re actually there?  Written by Andrew Ross, New York University (NYU) Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis, this Newsweek article delves into one of the most frightening consequences of a higher education: debt.  Student loans push many young adults into massive debt upon their college graduation.  Ross had been ignoring this “silent elephant” in his classroom until last year, when helped to launch the “Occupy Student Debt Campaign”, which among other things brought this issue to the public’s attention.  Through anecdotes of students whose dreams for their future had been ruined because of debt, such as a girl whose father had been laid off and thus considered dropping out of school, and a first generation American who had not taken out loans from a properly accredited institution, the article effectively informs the public of this problem.  Ross also included statistics, such as the alarming truth that African Americans are the most indebted of any racial group, which appealed to the audience’s ethos and pathos.  The article seemed targeted towards a younger demographic of Americans who have been, are, or will be faced with college and potential debt in the near future.  This article successfully placed the problem of debt into context for those unfamiliar with it, but I believe it will require more than just one person speaking up to make a difference.

Blink: Now Look Again

Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell.  Section analyzed: pages 56-61, "The psychologists Claude Steele…makes our decisions for us.”

Malcolm Gladwell is known for his psychological novels that examine human behavior, and his work as a reporter for the Washington Post and as a staff writer for The New Yorker Magazine exposed him to a variety of these behaviors.  His novel Blink focuses on cognitive behaviors, specifically the brain’s split-second decisions and how an individual perceives them.  This section explores the unconscious part of the brain’s ability to recognize details long before the conscious mind, and draws the conclusion that our conscious and unconscious decisions are much more susceptible to outside influences than was previously thought.  Gladwell uses evidence in a wide range of forms to substantiate his claims.  In addition to the rhetorical elements of varied narrative style, cause and effect, and definition, the process of exemplification has a profound effect on Gladwell’s points being conveyed well to the reader.  Though I sometimes feel his arguments are a stretch and almost too good to be true, they are well supported and effectively appeal to a wide audience.  However, Gladwell’s audience seems especially to be American citizens.  The majority of Gladwell’s examples are American studies that tie directly to American behaviors and values.  Gladwell’s purpose thus takes on a new meaning, becoming a way for specifically Americans to be able to use the brain’s ability to take in its surroundings to change how they live their lives.  Thus, I think his purpose is accomplished, and am excited to discover how his rhetorical strategies may change as the book progresses.

Anti-American Protests Flare, 11 years after 9/11

The New York Times article "Anti-American Protests Flare Beyond the Mideast" in Wordle format (click for close-up)

On September 11^th, 2012, triggered by an American video that insulted Islam, anti-American protests began in Cairo’s Tahrir Square.  The protests and destruction quickly spread, and within 4 days, over 65 American embassies around the world had been either penetrated by protestors or threatened with violence.  In his article, Rick Gladstone (a journalist for The New York Times who specializes in Middle Eastern/North African affairs) informs the American public of the chaos occurring from North Africa to South Asia and Indonesia.  Gladstone’s third person perspective and sentence structure effectively establish his expertise concerning Middle Eastern affairs and his pro-American viewpoint.  His sentence structure shows how he presents his beliefs in a way that would resonate with an American audience, as he emphasized the destruction.  Many of Gladstone’s word choices in the text—violent, deadly protests, breached security, penetrated US Embassies, tacit acknowledgements—convey the immensity and chaos of the protests, and effectively uses ethos to appeal to Americans with heightened feelings of patriotism immediately following the anniversary of 9/11.  The article frames the destruction in a way that victimizes the USA, without ever going into detail about the questionable video that acted as a catalyst for the violence.  In this way, I feel that Gladstone accomplished his purpose of informing America of anti-American violence in the Middle East.  However, it seems Gladstone allowed his pro-American views to influence his writing, making the story presented by the article seem incomplete to the reader.