Kyle's rough draft paper

From Mizzou Wiki

--I'll start here. You needn't outline in the actual paper.--

Stephen Toulmin is an English philosopher who created his own model to persuasive arguments by identifying elements in an argument. He came up with 6 steps of making a persuasive argument and those 6 steps are claim, grounds, warrant, backing, qualifier, and rebuttal. Toulmin's model helps prove that Wesch's video is good and bad about how technology helps us become cultutal literate and cultural competent. Toulmin became known for his ability to analyze and argue certain topics like Wesch's video. Toulmin would find a claim of an argument and he would find good information to support his claim not as a theory but with proven facts. Unlike rhetorical arguments where they find support to make a claim, Toulmin finds his claim first and supports his claim with background or data. His model is based on the logistics of an argument and not a theory that isn't proven. All of the 6 steps are key to making a strong claim and supporting that claim with strong support of information that relates to the claim. Through Toulmin's model anyone can increase there ability to become cultural literate and cultural competent.

In Wesch's video you could use Toulmin's model and claim that technology is bad and that it shouldn't be allowed in classrooms because it distracts students. In Wesch's video a student holds up a sign that shows the average student will only pay attention 40% of the time in class and that the other 60% is doing something on facebook or other irrelevant activities. Many students often text message there friends through there new phones and hardly pay attention in class. Students spend an average of 2 hours on there phone whether it is texting or calling. With this technology students become distracted and lose focus in class and suffer greatly because they are not learning and therefor will not become more culturally literate and culturally competent. Students are unwise about how they spend there time in class with the technology they have to be able to learn and to use in succeeding in class. Technology is available to those students who are in classrooms with computers and for those who have computers or laptops at home. Technology is accessable almost anywhere today. You could use your new iphone or your laptop with wi-fi internet or the computer at home. Almost everywhere you go technology will be there and it is easy to use, but how it used up to the person using the technology. Technology is meant to help people especially students to give them the ability to access information off the internet with unlimited sources to become more culturally literate and culturally competent in today's culture. Today's culture is dependent on technology and it is important that students understand how to use this technology to succeed in life after college. It is important that students don't mess around and lose focus of what they should be doing like researching information for a class project instead of watching a video on youtube or checking their profile on facebook. Technology isn't all bad but it is up to the student to use the technology to become more culturally literate and culturally competent or to use it for something irrelevant that gains them nothing.

In Wesh's video he finds a lot of information of how much time students spend using the technology they have and other related things that take up students time. He gets his information from students who responded to his blog about how they use the technology they have and what college is like. Through his collection of data from students who responded he was able to take that information and put together his claim that technology is spent unwisely and that it just becomes a distraction in class. He came up with the idea of using students with signs of the information he collected to show his claim in order to get students to understand how much time students spend on unrelated subjects than college. He uses the facts that the average student spends 2 hours a day watching TV and working and that during a students time in college that they will read more e-mail and check more facebook profiles than they would writing papers. The fact that 40% of students focus during class and that the other 60% is spent on facebook or other websites because computers are already in the classroom or students bring there laptops to class and multi-task, because that is what students have to be today. Wesch also finds evidence of how student life is stressful. Information like how students are taking classes for jobs that may not be available after they graduate, or they have to pay for books that they will never use in class. As well as how students will be in debt after college because of student loans. Such information helps Wesch prove his claim of how student is stressful and how technology is bad for students. In the beginning of Wesch's video he zooms in on the wall asking if these walls could talk, what would they say. Would they be able to give an answer to a question? Would they already know everything being taught because they have already heard it every year? We will never know but what Wesch is trying to prove is that if students listened in class and took good notes they would understand what is being taught.

Toulmin's model can be applied to Wesch's video and it proves that technology is both good and bad and that students have the ability to use it wisely to become more cultural literate and cultural competent. This model has the claim that technology is good and bad and is supported by many facts in the video. To support the claim in Wesch's video there needed to be background or data which Wesch found in his blog. He found the average time a student would watch TV, work, and spend on facebook in and out of class. Most students spend there time in class looking at profiles on facebook instead of working on assignments in class. Forty percent of students time in class is spent listening to the teacher and the other 60% is spent pondering on websites unrelated to class. Students are not wise in managing there time and instead of becoming cultural literate and cultural competent by working on the assignment in class they are off looking at other things. Although those who do focus on there class assignments and listen to the teacher become more cultural literate and cultural competent in areas that they didn't know. Students have the option of using the technology given to them to advance there cultural literacy and cultural competence but it is there responsibility to choose to want to become more cultural literate and cultural competent. Some classes in college have computers in class for them which allows students to do other things like look at video's on youtube or profiles on facebook. Like in the video one student said that she would write 400 pages for homework but 1300 e-mails and look at 1231 facebook profiles. That is being irresponsible and misusing the technology given to them so that they can further understand today's culture. Most students spend an average of 2 hours watching TV, and working every day. Today technology is everywhere especially in class where computers are accessible at any time. Students have the ability to access the internet and use it to further understand cultural literacy and cultural competence whether it is in class or on an iphone. Students must make that choice to decide whether or not they want to use technology wisely and pass college or misuse it and fail in college.

I believe Toulmin's model was related accordingly to Wesch's video in finding a claim and supporting it. The video made a claim and had information to support its claim and even more information to back up the background or data. The information given clearly showed that students spend there time unwisely during class and decrease there chances of becoming cultual literate and cultural competent when the technology is right in front of you, but yet some ignore it and do other things like watch TV or play video games. In Wesch's second video it shows that through any search engine there are thousands of sources to look at related to any search. The information to become cultural literate and cultural competent is a simple search away and thousands of sources to look at to understand the culture. The internet is how students today get there information instead of reading books for hours and highlighting important information. Today's culture has evolved from reading text from books to using the technology given to us in the form of the internet where all information is accessible without cracking open a book. The technology we have is able to allow us to become cultural literate and to understand the culture in order to be cultually competent and to apply it in today's society.