B
Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior” is an article from The Wall Street Journal. The sender Amy Chua, a professor at Yale Law School in USA, is comparing the Chinese upbringing to the Western way of upbringing. Mrs. Chua is trying to explain to the receiver, western parents, that there are pros and cons when you look at the Chinese way of educating children, but she also shows, that it leads to good results. The argumentation, in Mrs. Chua’s article is open. By using the open argumentation is gives Mrs. Chua the chance to show of her own opinion. And thereby reveal a little bit of herself to the reader. “For example, my Western friends who consider themselves strict make their children practice their instruments 30 minutes every day. An hour at most. For a Chinese mother the first hour is the easy part. It’s hours two and three that get tough.” Here Amy is arguing which of the cultures that is the strictest when it comes to the children’s after school activities. Later on in the text she even gives an example of how she makes her own children practice. “Lulu could not do it. We worked on it nonstop for a week, drilling each of her hands separately, over and over.” In this paragraph on page 9, we can see how she is clearly in favor of the Chinese method, which she uses herself. Amy Chua uses all of the known forms of appeal to convince the reader.
Mrs. Chua starts out with the logos appeal form. “..there are tons of studies out there showing marked and quantifiable difference between Chinese and Western when it comes to parenting.” Here she uses studies, which includes both sides of the discussion, to convince the readers. Using facts speaks to the common sense and seems very convincing to readers. “Other studies indicate that compared to Western parents, Chinese Parents spend approximately 10 times as long every day drilling academic activities with their children.” Chinese parents helping their children to study supports the “Chinese mothers” statement, that if the children have a problem in school, not being number one, it is because of unsuccessful parenting.
To make it more susceptible for the readers, she uses the appeal form pathos. Pathos speaks to the readers’ feelings and so does Amy Chua. “As an adult, I once did the same thing to Sophia, calling her garbage in English when she acted extremely disrespectfully toward me. When I mentioned that I had done this at a dinner party, I was immediately ostracized. One guest named Marcy got so upset she broke down in tears and had to leave early.” Here Mrs. Chua shows on side of the Chinese method. Some people might react, just like the woman from the example. Amy Chua knows that, and she is not trying to hide that side of the method, instead she chooses to show both sides. “Here’s a story in favor of coercion, Chinese-style. Lulu was about 7, still playing instruments and working on a piano piece called “The Little White Donkey” by the French composer Jacques Ibert.” Here she gives the story of how she forced her own daughter in to learning the piece and how hard it was, but also how it turned out successfully. “”Mommy, look- it’s easy!” After that, she wanted to play the piece over and wouldn’t leave the piano. That night, she came to sleep in my bed, and we snuggled and hugged, cracking each other up.” So even though the Chinese method seems harsh, in the end it gives results, and Amy Chua’s daughter were thankful for the hard work her mother did for her. It shows that the Chinese mothers don’t care if they hurt their children’s self-esteem. They believe that the worst thing parents can do, is let their children give up. When building confidence there is nothing better, than learning you can do something you thought you couldn’t. When speaking about a certain subject, the speaker must have some credibility, otherwise the reader will not believe the speaker. “They wonder what these parents do to produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies, what it’s like inside the family, and whether they could do it too. Well, I can tell them, because I’ve done it.” When Amy Chua gives the statement, that she herself has used the Chinese- method, we find her trustworthy. The language and word choice suggest, that Amy Chua is highly educated.
Amy Chau is a professor at Yale Law School in USA, which makes her even more reliable. As a reader we tend to rely on higher educated people, then if it is just some regular person. The composition of the text combined with the form of appeal makes the Chinese method of education more acceptable.
Amy Chua begins the introduction by using ethos. She tells a little about herself and her children, which makes the reader comfortable. “Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:”
Then in the main part she uses logos. She is here after capturing the reader, trying to convince them of her point of view. She does that by using statistics, “ In one study of 50 Western American mothers and 48 Chinese immigrant mothers, almost 70% of the Western mothers said either that “stressing academic success is not good for children” or that “parents need to foster the idea that learning is fun”. By contrast 0% of the Chinese mothers felt the same way”.
So she is convincing the reader by using facts and statistics, but she is also using pathos throughout the main text, so that the reader feels an emotional connection to the topic. “-when I was extremely disrespectful to my mother, my father angrily called me “garbage” in our native Hokkien dialect. It worked really well.” Here she gives a little of her self, and therefore the reader feels with her.
At last she ends the text using pathos by telling a story of how she herself is a Chinese mother, but she does not say that it is the only way of education. She simply states, that the two cultures work differently. The theme/ message Mrs. Chua is sending is that the Western parents and the Chinese parents have different views on how to educate children. “Western parents try to respect their children’s individuality, encouraging them to pursue their true passion, supporting their choices, and providing positive reinforcement and a nurturing environment. By contrast, the Chinese believe that the best way to protect their children is by preparing them for the future, letting them see what they’re capable of, and arming them with skills, work habits an inner confidence that no one can ever take away.” Even though she uses the Chinese- method she does not say that the Western parents method is wrong. Amy Chua shows, that she can see good thing in both of the methods, e.g. that the Western- method is about following that one specific child’s passion, while the Chinese method is about giving the children certain skills. My conclusion is, that the Chinese way of education is successful. We can see that the Chinese method of education is successful, and it create fantastic results. Amy Chua herself is an example of that. She was raised using the Chinese method, and now she is a professor at Yale Law School in USA, and her children are playing both the piano and the violin and they are raised using the Chinese method too. But there is a down side to the Chinese method. The method is only excepted in a few contrie, while it in other contries is frowened upon, because of the harsh methods.
Your writing has many strengths. Good mastery of topic sentences and their usefulness. And findings/observations in your analysis are well explained and demonstrated. Good overall structure with intro and conclusion.

Revise to avoid repetition and look carefully at your use of quotations as per my comments above. And make sure you have line references for everything.

B
Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior” is an article from The Wall Street Journal, January 8th 2011. The sender Amy Chua, a professor at Yale Law School in USA, is comparing the Chinese upbringing to the Western way of upbringing. Mrs. Chua is trying to explain to the receiver, western parents, that there are pros and cons when you look at the Chinese way of educating children, but she also shows, that it leads to good results. The argumentation, in Mrs. Chua’s article is open. By using the open argumentation is gives Mrs. Chua the chance to show of her own opinion. And thereby reveal a little bit of herself to the reader. “For example, my Western friends who consider themselves strict make their children practice their instruments 30 minutes every day. An hour at most. For a Chinese mother the first hour is the easy part. It’s hours two and three that get tough.”(p.6, ll. 28-31). Here Amy is arguing which of the cultures that is the strictest when it comes to the children’s after school activities. Later on in the text she even gives an example of how she makes her own children practice. “Lulu could not do it. We worked on it nonstop for a week, drilling each of her hands separately, over and over.”(p. 9, ll. 121-122), we can see how she is clearly in favor of the Chinese method, which she uses herself. Amy Chua uses all of the known forms of appeal to convince the reader.
Mrs. Chua starts out with the logos appeal form. “..there are tons of studies out there showing marked and quantifiable difference between Chinese and Western when it comes to parenting.”(p.7, ll.32-34) Here she uses studies, which includes both sides of the discussion, to convince the readers. Using facts speaks to the common sense and seems very convincing to readers. “Other studies indicate that compared to Western parents, Chinese Parents spend approximately 10 times as long every day drilling academic activities with their children.”(p.7, ll.41-43) Chinese parents helping their children to study supports the “Chinese mothers” statement, that if the children have a problem in school, not being number one, it is because of unsuccessful parenting.
To make it more susceptible for the readers, she uses the appeal form pathos. Pathos speaks to the readers’ feelings and so does Amy Chua. “As an adult, I once did the same thing to Sophia, calling her garbage in English when she acted extremely disrespectfully toward me. When I mentioned that I had done this at a dinner party, I was immediately ostracized. One guest named Marcy got so upset she broke down in tears and had to leave early.”(p.7, ll. 60-63) Here Mrs. Chua shows on side of the Chinese method. Some people might react, just like the woman from the example. Amy Chua knows that, and she is not trying to hide that side of the method, instead she chooses to show both sides. “Here’s a story in favor of coercion, Chinese-style. Lulu was about 7, still playing instruments and working on a piano piece called “The Little White Donkey” by the French composer Jacques Ibert.”(p. 9, ll. 116-118) Here she gives the story of how she forced her own daughter in to learning the piece by using the Chinese method, which she calls “Coercion”. She explains how hard it was for her 7 year old little girl, but also how it turned out successfully. “”Mommy, look- it’s easy!” After that, she wanted to play the piece over and wouldn’t leave the piano. That night, she came to sleep in my bed, and we snuggled and hugged, cracking each other up.”(p.10, ll.161-163) So even though the Chinese method seems harsh, in the end it gives results, and Amy Chua’s daughter were thankful for the hard work her mother did for her. It shows that the Chinese mothers don’t care if they hurt their children’s self-esteem. They believe that the worst thing parents can do, is let their children give up. They have the idea that when building confidence there is nothing better, than learning you can do something you thought you couldn’t. When speaking about a certain subject, the speaker must have some credibility also called ethos, otherwise the reader will not believe the speaker. “They wonder what these parents do to produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies, what it’s like inside the family, and whether they could do it too. Well, I can tell them, because I’ve done it.”(p.6, ll.5-7). When Amy Chua gives the statement, that she herself has used the Chinese- method, we find her trustworthy. The language and word choice suggest, that Amy Chua is highly educated.
Amy Chau is a professor at Yale Law School in USA, which makes her even more reliable. As a reader we tend to rely on higher educated people, than if it is just some regular person.
(….)
Then in the main part she uses logos. She is here after capturing the reader, trying to convince them of her point of view. She does that by using statistics, “ In one study of 50 Western American mothers and 48 Chinese immigrant mothers, almost 70% of the Western mothers said either that “stressing academic success is not good for children” or that “parents need to foster the idea that learning is fun”. By contrast 0% of the Chinese mothers felt the same way”.(p.7, ll.34-37)
So she is convincing the reader by using facts and statistics, but she is also using pathos throughout the main text, so that the reader feels an emotional connection to the topic. “-when I was extremely disrespectful to my mother, my father angrily called me “garbage” in our native Hokkien dialect. It worked really well.”(p. 7, ll. 55-56) Here she gives a little of her self, and therefore the reader feels with her.
At last she ends the text using pathos by telling a story of how she herself is a Chinese mother, but she does not say that it is the only way of education. She simply states, that the two cultures work differently. The theme/ message Mrs. Chua is sending is that the Western parents and the Chinese parents have different views on how to educate children. The western parents “respect their children’s individuality” and they support them, by “providing positive reinforcement and a nurturing environment”. The Chinese parents on the other hand believe in “preparing them for the future” and therefore “arming them with skills, work habits and inner confidence that no one can ever take away”.(p.10, ll. 176-181)
Even though she uses the Chinese- method she does not say that the Western parents method is wrong. Amy Chua shows, that she can see good thing in both of the methods, e.g. that the Western- method is about following that one specific child’s passion, while the Chinese method is about giving the children certain skills. My conclusion is, that the Chinese way of education is successful. We can see that the Chinese method of education is successful, and it create fantastic results. Amy Chua herself is an example of that. She was raised using the Chinese method, and now she is a professor at Yale Law School in USA, and her children are playing both the piano and the violin and they are raised using the Chinese method too. But there is a down side to the Chinese method. The method is only accepted in a few contrie, while it in other contries is frowened upon, because of the harsh methods.