With Halloween taking place just about a month ago and me being a first-year college student, I found it suitable to choose a topic that related to both college and the holiday that so many of America’s youth actively participate in these days. So, I began my research; through countless amounts of Google searches and digging through all sorts of news websites, I finally found an interesting article from The New York Times. The title was “Why Halloween at College Is So Frightening” and was written by a man named Mark Bauerlein who teaches at Emory University.
The periodical starts off by explaining the scary effects that Halloween can induce on the students and administration across many of today’s college campuses. This is particularly because …show more content…
He emphasizes the fact that while rules and regulations may deter some students of their wrongdoings; it does not entirely change the values and moral compass that the “college lifestyle” entails and I think it is easy to say this is the main purpose of his article. Now for his rhetoric, he does include all the key devices; he displays ethos and earns lots of credibility by providing a plethora of facts and statistics from many different college campuses across the nation. He implements logos by simply just making his argument. He creates a clear, logical argument that is advantageous for both students, administrators and society in general. However, his periodical does lack significant elements of pathos. It is very straight forward and factual with little to no emotional appeal to the reader unless maybe you are a victim of these discriminatory acts. Overall, his rhetoric could have used some work, but he also excels in certain areas of …show more content…
I think the American society has taken a step back from previous generations. From my experience, many teenagers and college students today are much less focused on being successful and much more focused on having a good time and feeling better about themselves. Whether that is by abusing drugs and alcohol or by using offensive behavior and engaging in sexual acts to look better among their peers. For example, one study I found stated that from the years 2007 to 2013, the percentage of people using marijuana over the age of 12 has increased from 5.8 percent to 7.5 percent (Drug Facts: Nationwide Trends). On top of that, I found another study stating that “The United States has the highest teenage pregnancy rate and infant mortality rate of all developed countries.” (Don’t Tell My Parents). With facts like these, I find it almost impossible to say we are moving in the right direction. I completely agree with what Bauerlein wants for our youth; however, the fact of the matter is that change is just unrealistic at this point in time especially with schools growing even larger. Even with more engagement on a personal level from the teachers, I still find it hard to believe that it would even make that significant of an impact on college
The periodical starts off by explaining the scary effects that Halloween can induce on the students and administration across many of today’s college campuses. This is particularly because …show more content…
He emphasizes the fact that while rules and regulations may deter some students of their wrongdoings; it does not entirely change the values and moral compass that the “college lifestyle” entails and I think it is easy to say this is the main purpose of his article. Now for his rhetoric, he does include all the key devices; he displays ethos and earns lots of credibility by providing a plethora of facts and statistics from many different college campuses across the nation. He implements logos by simply just making his argument. He creates a clear, logical argument that is advantageous for both students, administrators and society in general. However, his periodical does lack significant elements of pathos. It is very straight forward and factual with little to no emotional appeal to the reader unless maybe you are a victim of these discriminatory acts. Overall, his rhetoric could have used some work, but he also excels in certain areas of …show more content…
I think the American society has taken a step back from previous generations. From my experience, many teenagers and college students today are much less focused on being successful and much more focused on having a good time and feeling better about themselves. Whether that is by abusing drugs and alcohol or by using offensive behavior and engaging in sexual acts to look better among their peers. For example, one study I found stated that from the years 2007 to 2013, the percentage of people using marijuana over the age of 12 has increased from 5.8 percent to 7.5 percent (Drug Facts: Nationwide Trends). On top of that, I found another study stating that “The United States has the highest teenage pregnancy rate and infant mortality rate of all developed countries.” (Don’t Tell My Parents). With facts like these, I find it almost impossible to say we are moving in the right direction. I completely agree with what Bauerlein wants for our youth; however, the fact of the matter is that change is just unrealistic at this point in time especially with schools growing even larger. Even with more engagement on a personal level from the teachers, I still find it hard to believe that it would even make that significant of an impact on college