Rhetorical Analysis (Rough Draft)
The article “Blue-Collar Boomers Take Work Ethic to College” by Libby Sander, discusses the phenomenon of older Americans starting or returning to college later in life rather than “Fresh out of high school”. There was an increase in unemployment caused by the economic depression during this time. Struggling to find new jobs, the baby boomers, who never attended college or haven’t in years, often return to community colleges in seek of a new education. The author’s purpose is to persuade colleges to become more flexible and open minded so the baby boomers returning to school can efficiently finish college. Sander uses a combination of logos, ethos, pathos, and Kairos to make a strong argument and persuade her …show more content…
This makes Sander credible and trustworthy because she has experience with and knowledge on the subject of postsecondary education. Postsecondary education is any education received after high school, which includes technical skills that someone needs to perform tasks of a particular job. Therefore, this type of education applies to older adults who return to community colleges to find a new job or to learn a new skill to keep a current job. Sander refers to credible sources throughout the article, such as, a professor of sociology, the vice president for lifelong learning at the American Council on Education, the president of the American Association of Community Colleges, and the acting president of Mesa Community College. All of these sources are credible because their jobs have given them experience in education and they can understand how the system works. Another example of ethos is the way the author organizes the article. She uses subtitles, which make the article easier to read and appear clearer to the readers.
Now that the readers trust the author, …show more content…
The author uses pathos throughout the article by telling the stories of different baby boomers: Mr. Kearney, Mr. Cox, and Mr. Hill. The author begins the article with Russell Kearney’s story because his story makes the readers feel the most sympathetic. Kearney worked for about a decade driving a truck on a 120 mile route to deliver thousands of pounds of bread. He did this until he ruptured a disk in his back which he claims felt “like my spine was cut in half” (Kearney p. 782). Kearney retired from this heavy-labor job at the age of 53, but he wasn’t quite ready to retire. He needed a new job that would support him through his 60s and that didn’t take such a toll on his body. His options came down to going to college. “Mr. Kearney’s journey to college is becoming a common one among workers in the baby-boomer generation who are old enough to feel the strain of decades of physical labor, but too young to retire” (p. 782). The pathos here is meant to make the readers understand what these baby-boomers are going through and make the readers want to support them in
The article “Blue-Collar Boomers Take Work Ethic to College” by Libby Sander, discusses the phenomenon of older Americans starting or returning to college later in life rather than “Fresh out of high school”. There was an increase in unemployment caused by the economic depression during this time. Struggling to find new jobs, the baby boomers, who never attended college or haven’t in years, often return to community colleges in seek of a new education. The author’s purpose is to persuade colleges to become more flexible and open minded so the baby boomers returning to school can efficiently finish college. Sander uses a combination of logos, ethos, pathos, and Kairos to make a strong argument and persuade her …show more content…
This makes Sander credible and trustworthy because she has experience with and knowledge on the subject of postsecondary education. Postsecondary education is any education received after high school, which includes technical skills that someone needs to perform tasks of a particular job. Therefore, this type of education applies to older adults who return to community colleges to find a new job or to learn a new skill to keep a current job. Sander refers to credible sources throughout the article, such as, a professor of sociology, the vice president for lifelong learning at the American Council on Education, the president of the American Association of Community Colleges, and the acting president of Mesa Community College. All of these sources are credible because their jobs have given them experience in education and they can understand how the system works. Another example of ethos is the way the author organizes the article. She uses subtitles, which make the article easier to read and appear clearer to the readers.
Now that the readers trust the author, …show more content…
The author uses pathos throughout the article by telling the stories of different baby boomers: Mr. Kearney, Mr. Cox, and Mr. Hill. The author begins the article with Russell Kearney’s story because his story makes the readers feel the most sympathetic. Kearney worked for about a decade driving a truck on a 120 mile route to deliver thousands of pounds of bread. He did this until he ruptured a disk in his back which he claims felt “like my spine was cut in half” (Kearney p. 782). Kearney retired from this heavy-labor job at the age of 53, but he wasn’t quite ready to retire. He needed a new job that would support him through his 60s and that didn’t take such a toll on his body. His options came down to going to college. “Mr. Kearney’s journey to college is becoming a common one among workers in the baby-boomer generation who are old enough to feel the strain of decades of physical labor, but too young to retire” (p. 782). The pathos here is meant to make the readers understand what these baby-boomers are going through and make the readers want to support them in