Analysis Of Homeschooling: A Personal Decision By Karen White

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In “Homeschooling: A Personal Decision,” Karen White, journalist, presents an article in favor of home-schooling when students need for time for extra-curricular activities. Home-schooled children can be instructed by parents or other educators. Extra-curricular activities such as ballet require large amounts of practice time and home-schooling can provide a way to spend more time on these activities. While she persuasively argued that homeschooling allows ballet students to devote more time to dance, White’s claim was not effective in offering evidence that it offers a quality education. White’s article is in favor of home-schooling when students need for time for extra-curricular activities, specifically ballet. Considering that ballet …show more content…
In her very first paragraph, White creates sympathy for Kiara Howe, 14, who must drive 2 hours to attend her ballet classes, and then 2 hours to return home. She says that Kiara feels her “dreams of dancing for American Ballet Theatre would be even further away if she had to fit in her commute around a regular school day” (42). White sets the tone of the article for the reader to sympathize with the sacrifices ballet students must endure. White further tries to gain sympathy by arguing that “teenage dancers, particularly boys, can be unhappy in a traditional school setting where teasing runs rampant” (42). No adult, which is her intended audience, likes to hear of boys being teased because their sport or activity is not typical for their gender. White uses words like struggling, extensive, endless, challenging, isolated and suffer” or phrases like “frowned upon” to convince you that homeschooling is the best option. She also writes that Phyllis Papa, who was homeschooled herself and now homeschools her children, prepared lessons in subjects like “violin, math, reading, gymnastics, etiquette and history in a free form approach that obviously worked” (77). The phrase “obviously worked” is meant for you to take Papa at her word, because White paints her as an expert, having been homeschooled and also having homeschooled her own children. While mostly letting her evidence speak for itself, White conservatively uses strong adjectives to appeal to our

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