Let’s Just Assume Essay

Submitted By martz1lk
Words: 1085
Pages: 5
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6 November 2011

Let’s Just Assume

In her article “What’s the Matter with Kids Today?” author Amy Goldwasser begins with results from an organization known as Common Core, the study proved teenagers to be ignorant when talking about the knowledge of history and literature. Goldwasser then goes on to state her thoughts about teenagers today. She believes that they do know how to read a write, just in a different way than older generations are used to. Eventually, Goldwasser hopes that Americans will stop looking at the Internet as a villain and give the new generation a chance to succeed. This article was published at Salon.com, a somewhat interactive site that consists of two discussion board communities that are open to online subscribers. While the site is geared more toward a wide range of ages, the article is better suited for the older generations, such as parents of teenage children and educators because her main point is that the “Internet has turned teenagers into honest documentarians of their own lives-reporters embedded in their homes, their schools, and their own heads (238).”
The purpose of Goldwasser writing this article is to persuade her audience into thinking about the many ways their children use the Internet and how it’s a learning devise and not just a waste of time. Goldwesser’s use of rhetoric in the article was effective when trying to convince her intended audience. Her use of organization in this article makes this piece effective for her intended audience because her article starts out with a hook that is going to make the audience want to read the rest of the article. In this case Goldwasser uses logos when talking about the survey that was taken; she also uses a great deal of pathos as she discusses how parents react to their children knowing how to use all the latest gadgets.
For the most part Goldwasser uses organization to draw her readers into the article. The way she structures the paragraphs suggest that she wants her readers to keep reading to find out what exactly she thinks about teenagers and the internet. Her first paragraph was an excellent hook for her intended audience by taking about the statistics that scare people. She went right into the information she collected from the Common Core Organization.
Because Goldwasser does not rely heavily on ethos, the weight is put onto the shoulders of logos: Goldwasser entirely depends on logic and reason to pull her opinion through the piece. According to Goldwasser, "33 million Americans who are fluent in texting, emailing, blogging and IM'ing – which on average, 30 of their friends will visit every day, hanging out and writing for 20 minutes or so each" (237). This information is relevant to this article because it gives the reader some interesting numbers to take into account. This quote also tells the audience how much time and energy teenagers are spending on electronics. In stating what she believes to be good about the Internet and teen usage she adds that not all the data collected during the survey wasn’t upsetting. “It’s crushing to hear that one in four teens could not identify Adolf Hitler’s role in world history (239).” This is a shocking statistic that could make the audience reconsider Goldwasser’s claim about teens today. But she then goes on to talk about how she believes that this problem is not because of the Internet but because of parents and teachers going against the Internet movement: “If we only worked with, rather than against, the way this generation voluntarily takes in information – we might not be able to pick up the phone and expose tragic pockets of ignorance (239).”
Goldwasser is not only informing you about what is happening to the generations, but she is also causing the audience to think about how they are living their lives and what they are teaching their children, so both logos and pathos is being shown here. Lastly, Goldwasser suggests that we should be encouraging teenagers to research
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