What Do We Want Rhetorical Analysis

A Rhetorical Analysis of the article entitled “What do we Want?”

Hannah Armstrong

Grand Canyon University: English - 105

September 19, 2015

The conversation on race is affecting the education system in St. Louis. As events that

mirror the 1960’s have begun to rise up again, such as riots of Ferguson and the events

surrounding Ferguson. It can be argued that the children of the St. Louis district schools are

being hit the hardest by these traumatic events that surround them at school, home, and play. The

St. Louis dispatch gives us a unique and personal view through the article entitled “What do we

Want?”. The authors utilize ethos, pathos, and logos to communicate the need for quality

education in the St. Louis are amidst the chaos that ensues the city.

The authors of this article are writing as citizens of the St. Louis area. They observe that the current dealing of the issues of race, equality, and education is not currently being effectively dealt with in the city of St. Louis and beyond. They give us very clear views on their opinion when they stated “Because education is where opportunity starts, St. Louis should immediately show its serious by starting to turn around inequalities in public education” (St. Louis Dispatch, 2014.

para. 14 ). They are saying the problems are not being fixed in school as they should be, the issues that are facing the youth and the conversations that should be happening are not which is creating a pattern of mirrored behaviors to their environment.

The St.

Louis Dispatch expresses their appeal to ethos through the credibility of being a major newspaper in the city of St. Louis. This article which is fully titled “What do we want? Good Schools! When do we want them? NOW!” (St. Louis dispatch, 2014) was recognized and republished as a Pulitzer prize winner. Backing up there editorial, they use research from the Brooking Institute. Also, as I previously mentioned the newspaper is situated in St. Louis, the authors being citizens so it can be assumed they are drawing from personal observations and in turn experiencing the trials and changes the city has had to go through. We can draw credibility from personal experiences and there clearly marked

sources.

We are able to see pathos used all around the piece. The topic of education, race, politics, the matter of inequalities are riddled throughout this piece which the authors use to their advantage because of all the hot button topics covered in this editorial piece. One example of how they used pathos to clearly draw in the reader was stated in paragraph five in this way “The term white America might seem no more jarring than the image of a cop in body armor training his sniper rifle through a cloud of tear gas on young, black protesters” (St. Louis dispatch, 2014). By using buzzwords such as indicated in this quote, the authors are relying heavily on one already have a previous opinion and want to invoke in us some emotion to spur us to continue reading.

The appeal to logos or logic is used strategically in this article by giving us solutions to the problems posed. We can again use paragraph thirteen to drive this idea closer to the readers idea of common sense and logic when the authors use the phrase “Education is where opportunity starts, St. Louis should immediately show its serious by starting to turn around inequalities in public education” (St. Louis dispatch, 2014. para. 13). As a society America has put our faith in the education system to the building up of the youth for the betterment of the nation and world. This article gives claim that we are saying the words of change but not putting them into action. A large part of where what the authors are trying to make clear is that if we can begin reform in our education system, we might not have to deal with the outbursts and larger tragedies that plague the St. Louis and abroad.

In conclusion, the St. Louis Dispatch uses ethos, pathos, and logos to lead us to the awareness of needed reform in the American school system, focusing largely in St. Louis. The authors first show us how the events and times we are experiencing mirror event in the 1960’s. Which poses the question; how have we made strides forward? By focusing on the issues of racial and social barriers in the education system we can use this topic to better the schools rather than divide them.

References
St. Louis Dispatch(2014, Aug 17). What do we want?(Newspaper article). Retrieved from http://www.pulitzer.org/files/2015/editorial-writing/slpd/04slpd2015.pdf