Waiting For Superman Rhetorical Analysis

Page James

Mrs. Patrick

LNG 322

April 14, 2011

Waiting for Superman, Socratic Circle Questions

1. Analyzing rhetoric is about what persuasive techniques are being used, not whether or not you were convinced. Sometimes persuasion works, and it changes your mind. But sometimes you still don’t agree after a variety of persuasive attempts. Which rhetorical appeals are used most effectively in Waiting for Superman? Where was an appeal used, but it wasn’t effective for you? Be sure to support your opinion with evidence from the documentary.
Response 1(158): In this documentary they use the three rhetorical pathos, logos and ethos. They use these appeals to help explain the topic. They use pathos by following five students school life. Pathos is being used by showing how money and community problem can affect the student’s school career in so many ways. Also shows how the
lottery is fair but also unfair to those kids who want to learn. By interviewing the head of Washington D.C board of education is one way they used ethos. The also interviewed teachers and parents to show their credited research. For logos they show the percentage of students that will end up on the lower track of the school’s academic level. The one appeal that wasn’t very effective was logos, yes they use it but I didn’t really focus into the statistic more of the emotional view. Overall, all the appeals that were used in this documentary were used in the right sense.

2. Suspense was a key rhetorical strategy used by the director. How did the documentary create that suspense? Did it contribute positively or negatively to the documentary’s message? Be sure to support your opinion with evidence from the documentary.
Response 2(139): The documentary use suspense by having the lottery. The lottery kept the audience wondering who and what school will they get in. The lottery did and did not contribute positively to the message. The positive way was they used the lottery to pick out of random and give everyone a chance. They didn’t just give out a test and choose the highest scores, they gave everyone, no matter if you were poor or had problems they gave you chance. However the negative way was most the children and parents who had high hope didn’t get in. The students who were really going to work hard didn’t get in because one of those random numbers wasn’t theirs. So I believe the lottery was fair but also wasn’t fair in some cases, it gave a chance but not a fair chance. 3. According to Jonathan Alter, Senior Editor of Newsweek, “If you don’t go to college, you are screwed in America, and America’s kind of screwed.” Do you agree with this point of view? To support your response, use specific evidence from the documentary as well as your personal experience. Response 3(220): When Jonathan Alter, Senior Editor of Newsweek said “If you don’t go to college, you are screwed in America, and America’s kind of screwed.” I believe he was right.
If you don’t go to college you are heading down the wrong path because America is run on technology and if there are no people to help run and fix the technology then how can America survive? How can America stay in race in becoming the most powerful country of the world if there is no one there to help out? Also if you don’t go to college you don’t get a good job and if you don’t have a good job or career then you will most likely have money problems. If you don’t get the learning and skills you need you won’t know what to do on the job you want to have in life therefore they won’t hire you because you won’t know what to do. If you don’t have the job you don’t have a lot of money and then you will be in poverty and some people find alternate ways but those ways can also put you in jail. So it is way better to go to college and graduate and get a career or a good job to be secure in all that you
do.