Tow #23: A is for App!

This political cartoon, created by Cal Grondahl, who is the staff cartoonist for the Utah Stander Examiner is extremely controversial because it exemplifies how the use of technology has been interfering with school and teaching. It illustrates how some teachers do not even "need" to teach because technology does everything for them. With the advancements of the apple products, more and more classrooms are becoming technologically advanced, thus creating less purpose to instructors. The context is the development over technology and its influence on school.

This cartoon was written for everyone in society to become aware of the technology problem that is going on and how teachers are not doing their jobs as much because technology is taking over and that is interfering with learning.

This cartoon has a hyperbole in it because it is a bit of an exaggeration...teachers are not actually becoming useless and letting the students use technology to learn. While technology is being used more for educational purposes, teachers still teach, they just incorporate technology into their lessons which is actually really effective. 

The teacher looks distraught in the cartoon and that kind of shows that she is exhausted of this technology and the students look very confused, which shows that they really need some teaching guidance. 

At the top of the wall it says "...Standard Examiner," which shows that the teacher actually does have a purpose, but she does not want to do anything because what is the point if there is so much technology and kids nowadays are learning so much from it, what is the point of having teachers anymore?

Personification of the tablet is happening because the teacher says "Your tablet is your teacher; I'll be in the teacher's lounge." This is personifying the tablet signifying that it can do everything that the teacher can. I also think this shows that teachers are becoming lazier with technology.

However, I disagree with this whole political cartoon because technology is incorporated with teaching and teachers use it to make learning easier and more understandable. Teachers still teach and they are not becoming lazier because most teachers are not letting technology take over. I really disagree and think this cartoon is ineffective. 

Tow #22 :Doctors, psychologists battle over prescribing privileges

This editorial is in context of the Illinois Senate bill, passed last spring that would allow psychologists with advanced degrees and training to prescribe medication. This topic is highly debated and this editorial gives us the overview of two sides of the argument and from reading it, it can be gathered that many people do not think that psychologists have sufficient experience and clinical practice in order to prescribe medication.
This editorial is very informative, and the purpose is to show whether or not psychologists should have the right to prescribe medication or not. This is targeted at the whole public because this is a medical issue and can affect a lot of people.
This editorial gives a lot of testimonies to back up their information, "We don't doubt that both sides seek what they believe is best for patients.
State Rep. John Bradley, chief sponsor of the bill in the House, tells us that his constituents in southern Illinois too often lack access to mental health services. "I think there is an opportunity to expand care, but I also think we need to be careful about making sure the right safeguards are in place to make sure it is good-quality care." This shows the state representative's neutral perspective and I think that this is highly affective because it is making people think of both sides of the issue. Also this editorial has a lot of testimonies for doctors that are psychiatrists and what they think about psychologists being able to prescribe medication. I think that this is good that a psychiatrist's opinion is included because they do prescribe medication for mentally ill patients and this is their area of expertise so their testimonies are very accurate and valid. The argument is also affective in presenting an opposition because it talks about how the "Thresholds" (largest community in mental health in Illinois), opposed the bill and the "National Alliance on Mental Illness" did too. That kind of shows the perspective that not all of Illinois is neutral on the issue because there are a lot of risks involved with passing that kind of act so people want to be precautious
because after all this is patient safety.
I personally believe that this argument was very effective in that it kind of presented neutral sides of the argument at first introducing people to the issue, but then it kind of showed both sides to the argument. The most effective was the ethos because there was a lot of credibility and testimonies and facts to support this very interesting and informative editorial.

 

TOW #21: High Mortality From Alzheimer's Disease

With my new job at Marshall's being involved in donating money for Alzheimer's research, I came across a very informative article about Alzheimer's and how this disease causes more deaths than statistics actually show. The purpose of this article was to inform people about how highly deadly this disease is and with all the tolls that it costs, it should be "imperative" to enhance research to find treatments and cures.

The editorial gives many statistics, first starting out with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's estimations that Alzheimer's caused almost 84,000 deaths in the United States. After giving these statistics, the editors introduce a new study done by researchers at the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, that states that Alzheimer's is really the underlying cause of more than 500,000 deaths in the United States. The editorial does a really good comparison showing the difference of the statistics and showing that intensive and continuous research can inform us more about the disease. The editorial also does a nice job in describing the way the study is conducted and how the researchers come about the high death toll that Alzheimer's cause.

This editorial really appeals to emotions because after reading this people are going to want to do something because of the statistics the article provides. For example, "Those numbers would catapult Alzheimer’s from the sixth-leading cause of death in the United States to the third, behind heart disease and cancer." This makes people want to invest in more research to find treatments and cures for Alzheimer's because it really affects a lot of people and has devastating affects.

The editors who wrote this seem to be very credible because they use a lot of studies and statistics, however, I feel that they should have had more examples and more than two studies to show the tolls Alzheimer's brings. I also feel like they could have included more about the costs and ways that people can contribute to fund the research for the cure. 

TOW #20: Visual Text: Minimum Wage Raise

Goals: I hope to pick out a challenging and intriguing cartoon as my visual text.

I want this cartoon to be controversial and have rhetorical devices that can help me identify the purpose.

I also want it to be on a topic that I am passionate about.

I want this TOW to flow and be more like a short essay rather than just a small blogpost.

I also don’t want to list the requirements for the TOW, but make them sound more natural.

Earlier this year, President Barack Obama gave the State of the Union Address. Typically, the President of the United States delivers this address annually. In his address, President Barack Obama announced that he would like to raise this minimum wage from $7.25 to $9 an hour. This has caused a lot of controversy, especially amongst the Republicans. In a current political cartoon, Khalil Bendib, an Algerian artist and political cartoonist, illustrates the Republican point of view on the proposed minimum wage raise in order to show America the Republican's view how ineffective raising the minimum wage would be. Bendib is trying to appeal to the American public in order to make them realize the negatives that the minimum wage boost would bring.

When looking at the cartoon, the first thing that catches the eye are the elephant in suits. All these elephants look distraught in order to symbolize how awful raising the minimum wage would be. The elephant is actually the Republican symbol and when looking closely, one of the elephants has the acronym "GOP" written on his pant leg. This stands for "Grand Old Party" which is otherwise known as the Republican party. All four of these elephant are bringing up issues with Obama advocating to raise the minimum wage. One of them talks about how raising the minimum wage has been done before and this immediately questions the intended affect of the minimum wage boost because if the minimum wage has been raised before and still there were problems in the economy, this makes the American Public question whether raising the minimum wage is really effective or not. 

The second elephant talks about how the minimum wage should be less, not more. This is appealing to the logic of the Republican point of view because they highly disagree with raising the minimum rage and if logically thinking, minimum wage really is less not more. This makes the American public realize yet another fault with the raise of the minimum wage.

The third elephant really hits close to home for a lot of America's people because it says that money isn't the reward, jobs are. This appeals to the emotions of the audience because a lot of people in the United States are currently unemployed and raising the minimum wage would actually cause unemployment to go up so looking at this cartoon, people are going to understand that raising the minimum wage is really not a good thing. 

Finally, the last elephant is just a racist attempt of the Republicans to target the President. This mainly has to do with the fact that they believe that he is not a good president and implementing the boost of the minimum wage is a horrible idea. 

When looking at the speech bubbles, one notices that some words are specifically bolded. I think that the author did this in order to show the strong contempt of the Republicans against raising the minimum wage. Also, I think this was done in order to highlight the issues that raising the minimum wage would bring.

Personally, I thought that this was a really effective cartoon not only from a biased point of view, but because it had a lot of symbolism, while also including the actual issues that raising the minimum wage would bring. It did not merely just list all of them, but they were short- paraphrased issues that could be clearly understood not just from the Republican point of view, but anyone in the American public can look at this cartoon and understand the downfall of raising the minimum wage. Raising the minimum wage is the product of a bad idea with good intentions.