A much needed Revision

Garrett Foster
ID#: 10772380
English 301.05
Assignment #2Instructor: Paul Muhlhauser

To the average citizen, most will believe that America has come a long way since the civil-rights era of the 1960s. For the majority of our population our society has finally reached racial equality through affirmative action and desegregation. It looks as though, in the eyes of this average citizen, our police forces no longer racially profile minorities and unjustly imprison them. It would appear that courts have refrained from packing juries with people that are by no means “a jury of their peers” and prosecutors finally pursue the same justice for all of our citizens. In the article, “A TOWN IN TURMOIL”, by Gretel C. Kovach and Arian Campo-Flores, the harsh reality of racism in the United States is brought to the forefront of American society. The authors present a very convincing, albeit broken up, claim through their use of warrants, logos and pathos, and the excellent way in which they supported this claim.
To successfully accomplish their argument in the piece, the authors had to first find what part of this story they would develop their claim around. The authors’ main claim is, “That provocation, which conjured up an ugly history of lynch mobs and the Jim Crow South, unleashed a cycle of interracial strife that has roiled the tiny town of Jena.” This claim is a very sensitive subject and, if you read the article carefully enough, it indicates how such an atrocious action taken by white students in this town sparked the entire incident.
When one thinks of the Deep South, they typically associate it with the Jim Crow south of the past. Readers will bring these warrants of racism and the idea that southern people tend to be more racist than the rest of the country. Also, the majority of white citizens in our country fail to accept the “white privilege” that is prevalent in our society and may actually believe that the students who were charged with the more serious offense committed exactly what the witnesses says they did. Warrants play an instrumental role in this article; even a reader who is somewhat prejudiced or ignorant at all may have a belief that black people commit crimes and are dishonest.
As the article detailed the events leading up to the turmoil, the authors carefully constructed the presentation of the facts of the case and the sentences given out to build the ideal of justice they would hope readers would have. By showing how drastically dissimilar the two sentences given out thus far are, they used the inductive warrant here in a different, but very tactical way. They allow for the reader to be expecting more of the same trend and when this trend doesn’t follow, the reader is perplexed. Also, a form of literal analogy is used in much the same matter by presenting both sides and then showing how differently the white students were treated than the black students, again varying form the logical conclusion a person would draw (Wood, 142-143).
Since most of this article is opinion based, the logos being practiced throughout aides the writers’ argument. It is clear, that the authors planned the organization of the piece so that the readers would see the treatment of the white kids, and then they would be able to contrast that to the punishments handed out to the black children. The goal was to make the reader believe that the only fair punishment would be equal to or less than that given out to the white students. When the awful truth is finally released to the reader, the hope was that they would be alarmed at the racial disparity present. Logically, a reader will be able to look at all of the facts presented and develop in his or her own mind that inequality is clearly still at hand in the Deep South.
When someone writes an article that draws so much emotion out of readers, pathos is clearly present throughout. The author describes the bleak outlook for the students being charged and even more so with the town, “Meanwhile, Jena is struggling to find its way forward” (Kovach, Campo-Flores, 38). Also, the author appeals to the emotions of the readers when describing the initial act; “Decades of suppressed racial hostility spilled forth at the appearance of those swaying nooses” (36). In an article as heart-breaking as this, an author’s task is very simple in exhibiting pathos due to the fact that emotion runs rabid in such an issue.
Compared to how well the authors presented pathos in this article, they did equally as poor of a job in appealing to the ethos. The article is composed of feelings and opinions of people closely related, or affiliated, with one side or anther. The most credible sources the authors bring into the piece are that of the school board member, obviously attempting to downplay the situation, and the DA (someone who would not want to say, or imply anything to make his actions seem worse than they do). The references to the ACLU and NAACP appear at first to be able to add credibility, yet they really do not give any real information to the reader about the right and wrong in the case. With this being said, the authors really had no other options to look to for information, but it still leaves this reader feeling that the meat of the article is based on opinion and hearsay.
Yet, the authors prepared for this problem by providing backing to their warrant that the legal system in this area of our country is skewed. They incorporated a quote form the D.A. stating, “I can be your best friend or your worst enemy…With a stroke of my pen, I can make your lives disappear” (36), which allows the reader to believe that the D.A. could be a somewhat dishonest or viscous person. This idea can create for the reader a subconscious idea that, possibly this is the case with a majority of our lawmakers and enforcers.
The argument here was presented in a very adequate tone for the issue being discussed. For the authors to explicitly come out and write an article clearly biased one way or the other would be extremely unprofessional when the facts of this case are plainly construed. Racism exists, whether one wants to accept that fact or not, this article brings it out of the shadows and into the spotlight. After reading this article, it is clear that the argument used by the authors was very valid and influential, leaving the reader feeling called to take some form of action.



Works Cited
Kovach, Gretel C., and Arian Campo-Flores. "A TOWN IN TURMOIL." NEWSWEEK 27 Aug 2007: 36-38.
Wood, Nancy V.. Essentials of Argument. Upper Sadle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006.

THE BLOGSPOT:

My rhetorical analysis of an article in my NEWSWEEK magazine was in need of major revisions from the second draft to the third draft. The main reason I needed this transformation was due to my lack of understanding how to construct a good analysis, according to the Toulmin model. The meat of my second draft was constructed in the usual form that I use when creating a paper; eloquently articulating my main arguments while painting a dramatic picture for the reader. However, this form of writing doesn’t exactly fit for the assignment given. In the third draft I feel that I successfully incorporated many aspects that were lacking in my second draft such as: describing the claim more effectively, explaining where and how warrants were used, and editing out much of my plot summary that was included. Looking back on my second draft and then the revision notes by Paul, I initially felt overwhelmed at all the work I needed to do to get it up to par. Now, after completing the third draft, I feel that it was actually much easier to write the analysis according to the Toulmin model than to write it in part in the Toulmin model and the other part in my typical form. The overall organization and flow of the paper was immensely improved by simply writing the paper as a rhetorical analysis, mainly because the Toulmin model has a very concise organizational pattern that proves easy to follow. Finally, I feel that this third draft is superior due to the fact that I re-assessed the article I was using and looked at what rhetorical style it was using and tried to figure out how each piece of the article related to the Toulmin model. The third draft fully conforms to the style being taught to my peers and myself.