We are currently living in a world surrounded by the powerful realm of social media. It has become such an essential part of our daily lives that it has managed to integrate itself into the school environment. In the article “Using Facebook to Teach Rhetorical Analysis”, Jane Mathison Fife discusses how consumed the current generation is in Facebook, and uses it to teach students an important lesson about traditional rhetorical devices.
In this article, the author, a professor at Duke University, takes something relevant from the daily lives of her students, to intrigue them, and challenge them to further explore how Facebook is used as a means of communication beyond what they would observe at face-value. However, Fife’s perspective is …show more content…
A majority of them are most likely Facebook users, and therefore have already developed a bias towards the way they feel about Facebook and the different uses of it. The author uses this topic because of how essential technology is in their lives, however, as stated previously, many students had no interest to begin with because until afterwards, they had no idea that a lot of the aspects they discovered were even important. For example, types of pictures, comments (made by themselves or others), profile information, status’, friends and how many of them, etc… The motive for having personal statuses, carefully selected photos, and numerous friends, has a strong reflection on how you choose to represent yourself. The use of these valid examples allows the students the ability to clearly relate to what the teacher is talking about regarding their own Facebook accounts. This is effective because the students can reflect back and realize how these rhetorical devices actually play a role in their daily lives that they weren’t initially aware of. The relevancy of the topic to the audience was strong, however the argument could have been made stronger if the author had invoked more feeling into her writing, rather than just blandly stating facts and …show more content…
She speaks of inappropriate posts that are made explaining “…when they see a few pictures of drinking, they know that they are generally not representative of someone’s life.” (Fife 559), evidently displaying how most Facebook users are interpreted differently online. All arguments made throughout the piece regarding how you present yourself on Facebook and how you view other’s profiles are valid points, however, most arguments are based on students’ essays and opinions rather than on Fife’s personal observations. It states that “…some students dismissed all the articles as the opinions of out-of-touch old folks…” (Fife 556). Because Fife is part of an older generation, she may be unfamiliar with the continually developing world of technology, and in order to gather her thoughts on this topic, used the results from this class project. In order to have stronger arguments, she could speak from her own perspective by basing her arguments on her personal experiences with Facebook. In addition, the way a piece of writing is organized is crucial to the readers understanding. Fife constructs her writing in such a way that each point is compartmentalized into it’s own separate, unrelated passage. None of them transition into one another, at times, making it hard to follow. Although each point was valid, it was not clear what it was until fully
In this article, the author, a professor at Duke University, takes something relevant from the daily lives of her students, to intrigue them, and challenge them to further explore how Facebook is used as a means of communication beyond what they would observe at face-value. However, Fife’s perspective is …show more content…
A majority of them are most likely Facebook users, and therefore have already developed a bias towards the way they feel about Facebook and the different uses of it. The author uses this topic because of how essential technology is in their lives, however, as stated previously, many students had no interest to begin with because until afterwards, they had no idea that a lot of the aspects they discovered were even important. For example, types of pictures, comments (made by themselves or others), profile information, status’, friends and how many of them, etc… The motive for having personal statuses, carefully selected photos, and numerous friends, has a strong reflection on how you choose to represent yourself. The use of these valid examples allows the students the ability to clearly relate to what the teacher is talking about regarding their own Facebook accounts. This is effective because the students can reflect back and realize how these rhetorical devices actually play a role in their daily lives that they weren’t initially aware of. The relevancy of the topic to the audience was strong, however the argument could have been made stronger if the author had invoked more feeling into her writing, rather than just blandly stating facts and …show more content…
She speaks of inappropriate posts that are made explaining “…when they see a few pictures of drinking, they know that they are generally not representative of someone’s life.” (Fife 559), evidently displaying how most Facebook users are interpreted differently online. All arguments made throughout the piece regarding how you present yourself on Facebook and how you view other’s profiles are valid points, however, most arguments are based on students’ essays and opinions rather than on Fife’s personal observations. It states that “…some students dismissed all the articles as the opinions of out-of-touch old folks…” (Fife 556). Because Fife is part of an older generation, she may be unfamiliar with the continually developing world of technology, and in order to gather her thoughts on this topic, used the results from this class project. In order to have stronger arguments, she could speak from her own perspective by basing her arguments on her personal experiences with Facebook. In addition, the way a piece of writing is organized is crucial to the readers understanding. Fife constructs her writing in such a way that each point is compartmentalized into it’s own separate, unrelated passage. None of them transition into one another, at times, making it hard to follow. Although each point was valid, it was not clear what it was until fully