Author of the piece High School Abolishment
Rebecca Solnit's primary research areas are secondary education and, in particular, the hardships that teenagers experience during this stage of their education. Solnit recommends either changing the secondary education system, which divides students into groups based on their ages, or doing away with secondary education altogether. (Solnit 5). The author recommends ending secondary education because it presents difficulties for students. Additionally, the author states that her success through the high school education was as a result of having a friend who was older than her. Hence, the older friend would correct her as opposed to her peers. Additionally, the author has indicated that bullying occurs in high school. As a result of the suffering in high school life, the author provides adequate data such as the death rates among high school students to demonstrate the need for a change in the secondary education or its abolishment. The author states, \u2018' Eight percent of high school students have attempted to kill themselves, and 16 percent have considered trying (Solnit 6).'' The numbers are relatively high which in turns calls for actions to reduce these risks among another suffering for secondary students.
Analysis
The article is persuasive in nature as a result of author's choice of words as well as using already existing data and her research to support the thesis. Firstly, the author engages the reader through rhetoric questions. Rhetoric questions are questions that do not need to be answered, through the questions; the author can attract the author as well as engage them by having them try to answer the question. For example, one of the rhetoric question used is '' \u2026Why should they have to wait?'' (Rebecca 6). The question engages the reader and actively involves the reader in the topic, which in turn helps in persuading the reader's point of view.
Additionally, the author has also used direct voice. Throughout the article, there are direct words from different people, which have been quoted. The direct quotation enhances the validity of the information, which in turn helps to convince the reader regarding the topic being discussed. For example, while supporting the idea of mixing learners of different ages to allow students to learn to form their older peers as opposed to segregating adolescents of the same age in the same class and school environment. The author quotes\u2019 Norberg-Hodge argument, \\\"\u2026there will naturally be much more cooperation than in a group of ten twelve-year-olds (Solnit 6).\\\" Additionally, the author also quotes Hodge when she indicates that segregating learners according to their age is destructive, and she quoted that \u2018'\u2026 This sort of leveling has a very destructive effect\u2026 (Solnit 6)'' Additionally, the author also selectively uses terms such as' we' and 'you' to engage the reader which in turn helps in persuading the reader. For example, the author states that \u2018We tend to think that adolescence\u2026 (Solnit 6),'' and \u2018' When you are a teenager, your peers judge you by exacting and narrow criteria (Solnit 6).'' The choice of words has significantly helped in engaging the reader as well as persuading the reader to agree with what the author is supporting.
Apparently, the author does not use logical fallacies to convince the reader but rather, and she uses facts and existing data. For example, she provides the statistics of secondary students' who have taken their lives as well as those at risk of committing suicide (Solnit 6). Besides using the already existing data, the author has also used her experiences to explain to the reader the suffering that she went through and that is why she is advocating for a change or abolishment of secondary education. Using individual experiences have played a significant role in winning the reader's trust as sympathy, which in turn helped in persuading the reader to agree with the author's point of view. For example, the author states that \u2018'\u2026 I was a withdrawn, bookish kid all through elementary school, but the difficulty of being a misfit intensified when I started seventh grade (Solnit 5).'' Such statements among others in the article have helped in achieving the article's mood, which is essential in influencing reader's point of view.
Response
I disagree with the author's point of view, which suggests that secondary schools should be abolished or structured in a way that allows learners of different ages to learn together. Basing the point of view of some factors, which indicate that the difficulties that the author have highlighted are behavioral and social as opposed to academic matter. During adolescent, the young generation needs to belong to a group is relatively high and this explains why the conform to some groups and behaviors. As a result, the focus should be not on the systems of education but rather, on behavioral and social aspects. In this case, the adolescents can be taught on how to manage their peers as well how to form meaningful relationships with the peers to avoid rejection, which in turn leads to withdrawal. Finally, people of the same each have almost the same capacity of learning and integrating young people with other people implies that the young people will always lag behind due to their age and their level of cognitive ability (Cole 221).
Works Cited
Cole, Robert W. Educating Everybody's Children: Diverse Teaching Strategies for Diverse Learners. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2008. Internet resource.
Solnit, Rebecca. ‘’ Abolish High School’’. HARPER’S MAGAZINE 2015. 5-7
