School Attendance

            In the article So That Nobody Has To Go To School If They Don´t Want To by Roger Sipher, he focuses on the progress that public schools would have if attendance was not mandatory. What he meant by this is that those who really want to learn should be the ones to attend school, so that those who aren’t interested would not  “pollute the educational atmosphere for those who want to learn.” It is of no use to obligate people to go to school because like the famous saying which the author incorporated in the article says: "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink."

            

Master of Persuasion (Douglass Ch. 3 & 4)

       Douglass is a very persuasive writer, he conveys many emotions and makes us both understand and sympathize the life of slaves. He does this through the use of Aristotle's ancient rhetorical modes (Ethos, Logos, and Pathos). Ethos is credibility and it convinces by means of the character of the author. Frederick Douglass shows us this because we know that he is a slave who has experienced or been around those who suffer from these unfortunate events. In the previous chapters Douglass tells us that he has been raised in these plantations since birth; therefore it is safe for us to say that he knows the system like the back of his hand.

       Logos is persuasion through reasoning and the use of logic. An example of this is when he says: "I speak advisedly when I say this, - that killing a slave, or any colored person, in Talbot county, Maryland, is not treated as a crime, either by the courts or the community." (Douglass, 37). This quote is pretty much factual and it explains that this is the way the system worked.

       Pathos attempts to convince by means of emotional appeal, it makes the audience feel empathy. Because this is a narration, it is common for pathos to be seen throughout the whole text. Every detail and anecdote strikes us emotionally, it makes us experience great sympathy for the victims. Even the previous quote can be interpreted as pathos; because of the sickening way that society worked, we feel terrible for the slaves and their misfortune. In my opinion, pathos can be the most efficient form of persuasion due to its effect on the audience. 

Perspective (Douglass Ch.1 & 2)

      Our thoughts and emotions of a situation change when our point of view changes. Usually when we learn of miserable events in textbooks we distance ourselves from the victims and feel only a little sympathy. We think to ourselves: “oh, how sad” then we move on and forget about it.  However, in the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave we experience this sickening issue through a genuine primary source, therefore exponentiating our feelings.

      As the audience, we place ourselves in Frederick´s shoes and imagine ourselves as slaves. I can´t imagine how I would feel if I did not know my father or my age. It is like not having a sense of identity and thus feeling worthless. If my mother died I would cry uncontrollably, yet Douglass feels no emotion because he was unattached and forced apart from her. He is also obligated to see his aunt whipped until blood would flow nonstop. Douglass truly conveys this feeling of vulnerability and hopelessness. It just makes me want to go back in time and wipe out all the cold-blooded and barbaric slave owners in an even more ruthless manner than the way they treated the slaves.

If by Rudyard Kipling (video)

Blog vs. Blog Post

A blog is a discussion or informational site on the web. Blog posts are the individual posts which make up the body of a blog. These two terms are different; however, Forest Wickman obsseses over the common error of mistaking them. I find it weird that Wickman becomes so infuriated by this irrelevant issue that he must write an entire blog post about it. Even he admits that “Most who make it are new to blogging, or aren’t fluent in the language of the Web.” Although I understand how it can be somewhat annoying, Wickman seems way too enraged.