In the article, "A's for Everyone!" Alicia C. Shepard discussed her distress over the number of students that expected to be handed an A at the university she taught at. She claimed that it was becoming a normality for the majority of the class to receive A's; a B was no longer considered a good grade. The intended audience for this work of writing would be teachers, students, and parents. It can relate to teachers by the struggles they face, persuade students to not argue with their teachers about grades, and communicate to parents that sometimes their children are not deserving of higher grades. This article was published in The Washington Post, which is a newspaper printed in Washington D.C. about national politics. The readers will also
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A formal and an informative tone was used. She tried to get her point across that inflation of grades should not be acceptable and it is happening too often. This was emphasized when she proclaimed, "I had the numbers to back me up, and I wouldn't budge on her grade," after another student asked her if she could bump up her B-minus. Shepard includes experiences from her own life to make this article more personal. The story of even her own son receiving a bad grade helps drive her point that A's aren't always crucial. She also attempts to make readers feel bad for her and other teachers by adding phrases like, "[students] bombarded me with e-mails" and "she pestered me for several days." Words like bombarded and pestered made it seem as though it is torturous for teachers to be asked for grade changes and therefore they should get relieved of …show more content…
A topical form was used because it made the most sense. Throughout the article she remained persistent with her main idea of giving people the grades they deserve; different points were discussed and she also added in other teachers' viewpoints. Shepard used her knowledge of the grading system at the universities she taught at to back up the idea that too many A's are given. She included statistics about Harvard by stating, "half of the grades awarded are A's" and that Princeton University "declared war on grade inflation, voting to slash the number of A's they award to 25 percent of all grades." She backed up her arguments with facts, strengthening
A formal and an informative tone was used. She tried to get her point across that inflation of grades should not be acceptable and it is happening too often. This was emphasized when she proclaimed, "I had the numbers to back me up, and I wouldn't budge on her grade," after another student asked her if she could bump up her B-minus. Shepard includes experiences from her own life to make this article more personal. The story of even her own son receiving a bad grade helps drive her point that A's aren't always crucial. She also attempts to make readers feel bad for her and other teachers by adding phrases like, "[students] bombarded me with e-mails" and "she pestered me for several days." Words like bombarded and pestered made it seem as though it is torturous for teachers to be asked for grade changes and therefore they should get relieved of …show more content…
A topical form was used because it made the most sense. Throughout the article she remained persistent with her main idea of giving people the grades they deserve; different points were discussed and she also added in other teachers' viewpoints. Shepard used her knowledge of the grading system at the universities she taught at to back up the idea that too many A's are given. She included statistics about Harvard by stating, "half of the grades awarded are A's" and that Princeton University "declared war on grade inflation, voting to slash the number of A's they award to 25 percent of all grades." She backed up her arguments with facts, strengthening