Rhetorical Essay

Rhetorical Questions the movie “Waiting for Superman,” the filmmaker’s purpose is to show the viewing audience how America needs to improve its school system, and raise the standards to move on to the next grade level. I detected the purpose of the filmmaker by listening closely to the opening five minutes of the documentary. In the opening minutes the filmmaker, Davis Guggenheim, gives examples of how schools and teachers have started to trail other western countries in the education process. 2. The argument of the documentary is that America is falling behind in the education of its students, and other countries are becoming more innovative and successful in educating their students. Guggenheim asserts that teachers are over protected by the teachers union and the contracts they sign, so not much can be done when teachers don’t perform up to standards. 3. If you look at the “guilty party” of the African-American mom and her son, Guggenheim gives validity by showing how the son struggles in his elementary school because of the lack of professionalism by the teachers and how he wants to move onto a charter school where he can get a good education. Some points that detract from the argument are of how Guggenheim doesn’t show the current school the young boy is attending and the shortcomings of that school that led to the boy wanting to go to a charter school. 4. Guggenheim attempts to gain credibility and ethical appeal by showing numerous statistics of where America ranks in the education of their students. For example, he shows reading statistics that show what grade level high school students are at. Guggenheim is very effective at gaining credibility because he mixes facts in almost every time he makes an assertion about the current school system. 5. Guggenheim was very smart in the process of making this documentary because he didn’t only use statistics, but instead he also used actual real life stories of families who have children struggling in their schools. This gives the viewing audience a chance to relate to the families shown in the documentary; therefore, giving Guggenheim more credibility. This emotional appeal affects the film because it keeps the audience watching, and also gives first hand opinions from actual families. 6. Here are some logical appeal Guggenheim makes: • Statistic showing Americas rank in the educations of its students in the world • Teachers are over protected by the teachers union • Contracts keep the teachers safe from losing their jobs, so therefore teachers don’t work as hard • Aid to schools is being reduced Guggenheim supports all these points by interviewing students, teachers, parents, and education service professionals. He gives multiple views on each issue by taking interviews with the people I listed. His sources are very credible because he isn’t giving his own opinion, but instead he is giving opinions of people actually involved on both sides of the education system. 7. The attitude of the filmmaker is a very neutral one in my opinion. Guggenheim offers some insight of his own, but most of the key points are said by statistics or actual people he interviewed. I believe it was a good decision to be neutral because this was a documentary so he needed to allow people in the education system to do the talking. 8. The majority of Guggenheim’s camera techniques are seen when he is doing interviews with people. He shows the interviews as a conversation, so the person being interviewed is never looking at the camera but is instead looking at the person asking the question. This makes it easier for the person to answer questions because he doesn’t have to worry about looking into the camera. 9. The structure of the film is set up to where it shows the beginning of the families featured and their current schools they are attending. Then it moves onto how those families want to get admission into a charter school to get a better education. Finally it shows whether those families got admission or not. Within this structure Guggenheim mixes in interviews with other education leaders, like Geoffrey Canada, and he also uses statistics to make his point. I agree with the structure set up of this film because it has smooth transitions into each of the phases I listed. 10. Guggenheim identifies the “who cares” as families with children who are in school or will be attending school in the future. The “so what” is to show the audience that major changes need to be made in our school system so we don’t lose any more ground to other countries. 11. The film identified politicians in the Harlem area as naysayers. These politicians told Geoffrey Canada (who was proposing the new charter school idea) that his idea was a flop because the people in the Harlem area couldn’t be fixed because their whole lives have been spent in poverty. Canada still continued in his efforts of a charter school in Harlem and he succeeded. Now the charter school in Harlem has his students scoring higher on tests then students in some of the best schools in the country. Another naysayer were the teachers union officials who disallowed the firing of their teachers based on some clauses in their contracts. Teachers were found to be breaking rules, but when attempted to fire them the teachers union fought back and disallowed it. Guggenheim uses both of these naysayers to give an idea of how difficult it is to propose and enact new ideas. 12. One question that didn’t get answered for me is; why didn’t Guggenheim show students who were succeeding in the current school system. This would have allowed the argument to be more compelling because the viewers could have seen both sides of students succeeding or failing in the current school system. 13. The “guilty Party’ I will talk about is that of the African-American mom and son. The mom knows that she wasn’t given the opportunity to go to college because of financial issues and she doesn’t want that to happen to her son. Guggenheim shows her families story by showing her son in his current school and how he is struggling with one particular teacher. The mom tries to reach out to that teacher but to no avail. This leads to the mom applying for admission to a charter school and hoping they get their name called in the lottery for entry. Guggenheim shows that families want their children to succeed and be sufficient in the basic areas of education like math and reading. He uses this family to showcase that exact point.