Because it is very credible, emotionally appealing, and slightly academically based, bell hooks's essay "Keeping Close to Home: Class and Education" is an essay that I consider to be very touching. While arguing in her essay that the rich class and the working-class should come to respect and understand each other, bell hooks employs three elements of argument: ethos, pathos, and logos. With her usage of ethos, hooks relates her experience as an undergraduate at Stanford. Providing an experience from a time before she went to Stanford, hooks uses pathos to inspire the audience. However, hooks uses logos by appealing to the readers' logic. These readers are the working-class and the privileged, the audience of her book: "Ain't I a Woman: black women and feminism." Relying mostly on ethos, hooks uses the three elements of argument to express her belief that students should not feel the pressure to replace their values with others' values. Because hooks feels strongly about her belief, she argues that a university should help students maintain the connection with their values, so people of different communities will feel neither inferior nor superior to others but equal.
When using ethos, hooks demonstrates her knowledge of values by relating her experience at Stanford where she met many privileged whites who had values that contradicted her own. For example, many of the white students appeared to lack respect for their parents. However, hooks's parents always taught her to show them respect. hooks even says in her essay, "I was profoundly shocked and disturbed when peers would talk about their parents without respect, or would even say that they hated their parents" (88). Also, everyone looked down upon the ...
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... much easier when we were all in segregated communities sharing common experiences in relation to social institutions. Without this grounding, we must work to maintain ties, connection" (hooks 95). As hooks hints, maintaining ties may not be easy, but it is definitely possible. hooks establishes common ground with people who have these questions, and she gives the answer in her experience of hard work. Having worked hard on handling harsh criticism and pressure without losing ties with her background, bell hooks, in my opinion, is an example of a strong individual. So, if you need proof that the answer to these questions is yes, bell hooks is all the proof you need!
Works Cited
hooks, bell. "Keeping Close to Home: Class and Education." The Presence of Others. 2nd ed. Andrea Lunsford and John J. Ruszkiewicz. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997. 85-95.
“Consider the lobster” by David Foster Wallace and “Letters from Birmingham Jail” by MLK Jr. apply rhetoric such as pathos, logos, ethos, and diction in order to create a firm persuasive essay. In Wallace’s article the audience is questioned about the morality behind killing and cooking a lobster, while in MLK’s article we are persuaded to take action about social injustice and inequality. Both authors try to prompt their readers with different types of rhetoric, but together they apply pathos more than ethos and logos.
In the argument that college is not for everyone, Reeves establishes his ethos through both extrinsic and intrinsic support while maintaining clarity using the logos approach. Pathos, however, lacked the same amount of control. By using an excess amount of pathos while approaching rhetoric with a condescending tone, the author diminished the persuasiveness achieved by combining the techniques. This resulted in a limited audience due to the insulting nature of the closing remarks geared to the very audience he was trying to reach.
Gatto begins his article by explaining that boredom is an everyday issue in modern schooling. Teachers struggle with boredom due to the attitudes and behavior of students and find it exhausting to teach kids when they behave in an immature manner. However, students also become frustrated with the repetition of useless information, as well as being forced to fit society’s standards. Gatto shifts the focus to his thoughts on the importance of mandatory schooling. He thinks that the lengthy school days are completely unnecessary. There are homeschoolers who go without the eight-hour school days and become just as successful as others. For example, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Abraham Lincoln- who are historical icons- received little to no schooling at all. Mandatory school attendance did not become important until the early 1900s when James Bryant Conant, who was a poison gas specialist in Prussia during
bell hooks’s essay, "Keeping Close to Home", uses three important components of argument (ethos, pathos, and logos) to support her claim. hooks develops her essay by establishing credibility with her audience, appealing to the reader’s logic, and stirring their emotions. She questions the role a university should play in the life of a nation, claiming that higher education should not tear a student away from his roots, but help him to build an education upon his background.
Wright, R. (2001). The ethics of living Jim Crow: An autobiographical sketch. In P. Rothenberg (Ed.). Race, class, and gender in the United States: An integrated study. (5th ed. pp. 21-30). New York: Worth Publishers.
The same consistent, expressive voice introduces Ms. Angelou's effective strategy of comparison and contrast. By comparing what the black schools don't have, such as 'lawn, nor hedges, nor tennis courts, nor climbing ivy,' reveals not only a clear illustration of what luxuries the white schools in the forties had but also how unjust the system was. The adults at the graduation focus on the differences that were previously left unspoken. The black principal's voice fades as he describes "the friendship of kindly people to those less fortunate then themselves" and the white commencement speaker implies that" the white kids would have a chance to become Galileo's.... and our boys would try to be Jesse Owenes..." The author's emotions vary from the first proclamation that "I was the person of the moment" to the agonizing thoughts that it "was awful to be a Negro and have no control over my life" to the moment of epiphany: "we are on top again."
How imperative is it that one pursues a traditional college experience? Although it might appear that Charles Murray and Liz Addison are in agreement that the traditional college experience is not necessary for everyone, Addison provides a more convincing argument that higher education is necessary in some form. This is seen through Addison’s arguments that college is essential to growing up, that education is proportional to the life one lives, and that community college reinvents the traditional college experience. Not only does Addison have her own opinions about college, but Murray does as well.
Bell hooks knows about the challenges of race and class, and why some people have a harder time than others in achieving the American Dream. It is normal to feel uncomfortable and awkward arriving at a new school for the first time, but this was something completely different. For bell hooks, walking through the halls with eyes staring at her as if she was an alien, she realized that schooling for her would never be the same. She describes her feelings of inequality a...
Different social classes come with different perspectives and challenges, usually the belief is that higher society is much happier than those in the lower rank, but not including race into the education does not give all sides of that story. By evaluating parts in Cane by Jean Toomer, Quicksand and Passing by Nella Larsen, and Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston story of class and race is being told. Color and classism have gone hand in hand for many years and evaluating the lives of characters that are considered the lowest of the low and yet made it up the totem pole brings up an important discussion. The conflicting ideas of race and class actually encourage racism and ruin the lives of characters in the black bourgeoisie.
In our current society, it is acceptable to talk about race or gender. However, when it comes to the subject of class, people tend to tense, and are uncertain as to where they stand. At one time in history money afforded prestige and power, however now, money is a large part of our society and tends to rule many peoples lives. In the book Where We Stand: Class Matters, by bell hooks, she describes a life growing up in a family who had nothing, to now becoming one of America’s most admired writers. She wrote this book because she wanted to write about her journey from a working class world to class-consciousness, and how we are challenged everyday with the widening gap between the rich and the poor. In her book, hook’s describes a life dominated by the haunting issues of money, race, and class.
Berns, Roberta. Child, family, school, community: socialization and support. 9th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning, 2013. Print.
Kauffman, J. M., & Landrum, T. J. (2013). School and Culture. In S. D. Dragin & M. B. Finch
bell hooks ties in the three elements of argument, ethos, pathos, and logos in her essay, "Keeping Close to Home: Class and Education," by telling us about the many events of her life. hooks establishes credibility, or ethos, unintentionally, through descriptions of her achievements and character. hooks appeals to the readers logic, or logos, by giving real world examples from her personal experiences. She also appeals to the readers emotions, or pathos. Pathos is the aspect of argument she uses most heavily. hooks does this by talking about family, peers, feelings, and change. hooks shows us ,in her essay, credibility, logic, and emotion using the stories of her life.
Halberstam Joshua uses humor to effectively communicate his message to the college students that are looking to be successful in college. By communicating on a lighter note, the author has helped the readers to solve the dilemmas between ethics and culture. His style is rather informal and one that requires little preparation, which makes it interesting to read his work. Halberstam introduces a topic on attendance, he begins it with an introductory statement where he humorously states that despite him not taking attendance, he does not owe favors to anyone (Halberstam 1). Consequently, he draws insights and evidence from the colleges system that some professors are strict on class attendance and participation, while
A student’s learning environment has a significant impact on their academic achievement. (Garas-York, 2010, p. 432) This section will discuss how the environment a student is placed in, whether at home or school, plays a large role in determining their academic success. It will include studies conducted with both homeschooled and non-homeschooled students, and will show how a traditional school setting is often not conducive to a student’s learning