James Dawson
Week 5 assignment
Identifying Rhetorical Devices

The Search for Opportunity
The bottom line is that our education system in West Virginia is struggling. We are consistently ranked at the bottom of lists that we don't want to be on, and rarely make an appearance on the top lists in education. President John F. Kennedy said that "all of us do not have equal talent, but all of us should have an equal opportunity to develop our talent.” Public charter schools are simply another way to give parents choices in education for their children. The students in this state deserve every opportunity to have an exceptional education that will prepare them for success in our global economy.
In the above article one of the first rhetorical devices I found was the weaselers affect. Where the author states “We are consistently ranked at the bottom of lists that we don't want to be on, and rarely make an appearance on the top lists in education.” The author is making an argument without specifying what these lists are and what their actual rankings are on the top list in education which may also be considered a proof surrogate. This also gives the author a way out if anyone challenges the statement. The others were euphemism and dysphemism. Both of the other devices were used in downplaying the benefits of charter schools where it stated “Public charter schools are simply another way to give parents choices in education for their children.” And also “The students in this state deserve every opportunity to have an exceptional education that will prepare them for success in our global economy. The Impact of this article was meant to sway the reader to sympathize with the school and maybe even help if possible with the schools mission to be ranked among the top schools in education. Furthermore I believe the story’s argument is weekend because they are not the only schools going thru this situation therefore making the article biased to only West Virginia and not for education as a whole. There are many school systems suffering worldwide so with that statement the author should have expanded on the need more than the want.

The Educational System in West Virginia
As cofounder of West Virginians for Education Reform, and as a recent graduate of the state's public school system, I remind citizens and lawmakers that our state ranks 50th in the nation in the number of adults with bachelor's degrees, and that recent survey results show that 86 percent of West Virginia residents favor more public school options. To me, both data points provide an overwhelming message from parents, business and community members, as well as taxpayers and citizens, that it is time our state creates and passes a comprehensive state charter law that will explicitly allow for start-up public charter schools. With our graduation rate recently calculated at 71 percent, it is very clear that we are not doing the job of preparing over a quarter of a million of our public school students for college and beyond. The time for real reform is now.
This article consists of euphemism, stereotypes, and a few proof surrogates causing the article to be a fall under the category of being a fallacy. The article starts out with the author speaking of the number of adults with bachelor degrees and then turns to a survey that states that 86 percent of residents favor public schools, but, the author doesn’t state what survey this was or who the residents were that participated in completing this survey. Also the author threw a lot of numbers and percentages in this article where in the end your conclusion from the article doesn’t add up with the number of public school students that went to college and actually were unprepared due to schools and the lack thereof. Rhetorical devices can be categorized by the importance and the impact that each rhetorical device contribute to the article. However, the rhetorical devices can be categorized by the different people using them. However, innuendos, euphemisms, downplayers and weaselers can be in the same category because these rhetorical devices enhance or decrease the main intentions of the words and phrases. Overall these articles were put together to reach out to the readers informing them of the charter school systems from the authors point of view and both contained very intriguing statements and arguments and in the end it’s all up to the reader to dissect and rationalize what’s being said even thru the biased and or unclear statements.