Schoolies Week

Schoolies week is becoming a major issue in Australia, with tens of thousands of kids going on holiday every year and enjoying the so-called ‘booze and drug fest’. In recent years however, students seem to be taking more care and responsibility during schoolies week, and their behaviour has generally improved. In the opinion piece “Parents who just won’t say ‘no’ to blame for schoolies scourge”, published in the Herald Sun on the 25th of September 2010, Rebecca Wilson contends in an alarming and critical tone, that parents must accept responsibility for the growing schoolies epidemic, and must learn to stand up to their kids if we are to purge this harmful event out of our Australian culture. This is a major contrast to the viewpoint of Wes
She opens her article by recounting her personal experience of schoolies week in high school, when “there were no wire barriers, dance raves, or identity bracelets” needed during schoolies week, and “nobody’s life came to a standstill as a result of missing out”. By including this anecdote in the beginning of her article, Wilson instantly engages the reader, and gives them a picture of how schoolies has evolved over the years, from a “quiet affair involving a couple of hundred school leavers”, to a “booze and drug fest of the highest order”. The anecdotal evidence also encourages the reader to accept the writer as a credible source of information due to her personal experience in the matter, and the evidence she provides which show that “at least a third of the kids involved [in schoolies] are underage”, enhances this effect by adding even more legitimacy to her arguments, convincing the audience to share in her point of
The word “insurgence” relates the violence during schoolies to warfare, instantly ingraining a negative view, of schoolies as a dangerous event which places kids at risk, in the minds of parents. The caption, “Battleground”, under the accompanying image of a drunken, handcuffed teenager being escorted by policemen, has the same negative connotation. The image itself also works to remind parents of the risks and dangers that are present during schoolies week, and of the reality that their children could find themselves in the same position as the boy in the image. The exaggeration and appeal to fear which are expressed with an alarming tone in the statement: “blood-stained faces, unconscious teenagers on the beach, and reports of date rape are not uncommon”, work together to give the cumulative effect of unnerving parents and blowing their fears way out of proportion, making them believe that there children will almost certainly face the same fate. This sways the audience to agree with Wilson, that parents must understand that schoolies is not a rite of passage, and that it is in their power to decide whether their child can participate in this unnecessary and dangerous event or