| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Diane Ravitch | ||||
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For my next paper, I plan on arguing against high stake testings and the type of school reforms proposed by Michelle Rhee and like minded reformers. So, when it came time to write a rhetorical analysis of an author, Diane Ravitch came to mind.
I wasn't particularly familiar with Ravitch, but I remembered seeing her on an episode of The Daily Show. I remember thinking she was awkward, and that she didn't seem very good at arguing or appealing to her audience, but that she was intriguing, and she had intelligent arguments. So, I decided I would research her.
I started researching Ravitch by reading her various articles on the internet and in databases. Her articles were interesting enough, and flawed enough, to be worth a critical review. One thing that I noticed again and again was that even when she wasn't writing something to be read in an education specific publication, she wrote for a very narrow audience and didn't provide much evidence. Although she discussed poverty on The Daily Show, she doesn't use her articles to tell stories about these students, and she doesn't work very hard to appeal to an audience using pathos.
In my opinion, unless people like Ravitch start focusing their arguments on children and use more pathos, they don't stand a chance against people like Rhee who are anti teacher tenure and pro high stake testing. Rhee's narrative strokes people's reptilian brains, and Ravitch's doesn't.
When I read "Why We're Behind: What Top Nations Teach Their Students But We Don't," I was really interested in what Ravitch and Cortese had to say about curriculum in the US and abroad. I thought their arguments seemed logical, but I didn't see much evidence within their article supporting their claims. I decided that I'd review this article, an article I mostly agree with, because I wanted to find the flaws in the argument, and find a way to build a better one that can appeal to a broad audience, and successfully convince readers using logos, ethos, and pathos.
What really informed my initial writing was the student essay we had to read in class. Although, there were times when I didn't like that essay and I wasn't sure if ours were supposed to look exactly like that one. I figured that it had probably been the best article in the class, and so that's why it was used, so I didn't know if it was a good idea to do it differently. Ultimately, I think I did stray from the example essay because I'm a lot more critical of Ravitch and Cortese's article than the student writer was of his or her author's work. But I really didn't like reading this essay because it makes me apprehensive about going into more depth about the article or Ravitch's claims. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing.
After I wrote my outline for the course, I didn't completely stick to it, but I did follow my initial outline more closely than I've followed any of my previous outlines. I think that is just because I was working with a smaller number of sources and the focus was much more narrow than in our previous papers.
After I posted my first draft I received a couple of comments on my essay which I took into consideration when revising for my second draft. It was helpful, but it's always more helpful when they are received earlier, rather than receiving them the day our next draft is due.
For me, the annotated bibliography was harder to write for sources that weren't books, because I have a lot less to say about a short article than an entire novel.
After revising the essay I looked over the citations and adjusted the margins according to our guidelines.
I don't think I found any part of the process for this paper particularly helpful. I knew what I was going write and so I wrote it.
For me, my favorite part of this process was the research and the writing. Sometimes, when my vision isn't too blurry, I think I'd like to research for the rest of my life. But, my least favorite parts of the process was changing the margins. I just don't like changing margins and never have. It's just like how I can't stand looking at miniature golf courses, even though I don't have a good reason for feeling that way.
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