Lauren's Rough Draft of Paper 2
From Mizzou Wiki
1-Introduce rhetorical text of Toulmin's model
2-About what rhetorical strategies you can find in video 1 How Wesch uses rhetoric to persuade his views
3-How Toulmin's model is applied to video 1, show all steps the argument is that technology is both good and bad and it is the students responsibility to use it wisely to become more cult. lit. and cult. comp.
4-How i feel about Toulmin's model according to the video and connect it to the next paragraph about cultural lit and cultural comp. bring up video 2 and how it shows that technology is changing us it is changing how we learn and process information
One way of looking at this is by comparing the video and these argumentative ideas to Toulmin's Rhetorical Model. Steven Toulmin became famous for his moral reasoning and his rhetorical analysis. Steven Toulmin made a diagram that consisted of six components of argumentation that are all interrelated. The diagram is used to support and analyze an argument. Toulmin's argumentative model focuses on the logistics of the argument and not just the argument as a theory. Toulmin's model of argumentation differs from a theoretical argument because Toulmin first finds the claim of the argument and supports the claim. A theoretical argument finds support and then finds the claim. Toulmin's model supports an argument very well because you have a solid claim and solid support. Toulmin's six components of argument are first the claim, grounds or data, warrant, backing, qualifier, and finally the rebuttal. All of these are interrelated to support an argument.
In Michael Wesch's video he uses certain rhetorical techniques to persuade his audience of some of the ideas he wishes to be seen. He uses the students to hold up signs to tell about their studentlife. This is rhetorical because it relates to students who watch the video. If a student watching the video is also in a class where their neighbor pays for the class but never comes they can relate to that so that student might feel more inclined to feel stronger about the video. The student might also see more through Wesch's eyes because they feel they relate to the video. This goes hand in hand with the rhetorical stance of ethos. There are three in this category. There is ethos, pathos, and logos. Wesch shows all three of these. Pathos deals with the emotional stance of persuation. In the video this is seen through a very light hue but it is there. Wesch is definately provoking an emotional tie to how students are in college today. When I watch this video I cannot help but to feel that students are not acting the way they should in college. Not all students are browsing around on the internet all through class but it seems like even the students who are not don't take college as seriously as they should. This is how Wesch shows pathos. The music in the film if it were mood invoking then it would support the pathos argument but it is pretty unemotional so we will not add that to the pathos category. Lastly, logos. Wesch shows logos in his video by showing the statistics of the students. Different students hold up signs that give different data about what their college life is like. They calculated that with everything they do in a day their day would need to be 26.5 hours long. Wesch does many things in his video to try to persuade the person watching his video to think more deeply about the education system and about how students are acting in college.
Now, let us get back to Toulmin's model. Toulmin's model can be applied to the video and to the argument I am making in this paper. The claim is that technology in the college classroom is both good and bad and how it is the student's responsibility to use the technology wisely. The data or grounds that support this claim would be double-edged. Evidence from the video that supports how technology is bad is where a girl holds up her sign that says, "I bring my laptop to class but don't work on class stuff." Evidence from the movie that supports how technology is good is at the end of the video where Wesch writes on the chalkboard and he is saying that "writing on the chalkboard encourages the teacher to move" but it also has a box saying, "what's missing: animation, network, photos, videos". All of these things come from technology and also help expand your mind. The warrant would be how technology is useful in class but it must be used properly. The backing would be additional support after the warrant by saying that if the technology in class is used properly students can do much more research about the topics being taught in class to become more culturally literate and more culturally competent. The qualifier is how most people will become more culturally literate and culturally competent if they use technology wisely to expand their minds. And lastly the rebuttal is that technology in the classroom is a good thing unless it is used poorly. Toulmin's model, as you can see, really helps to show the support in the argument. People are more likely to believe an argument if it has strong support.
Toulmin's model helps to support how technology is both good and bad in the classroom. The model helps you to see that if the student is using the technology wisely then the student has more power to become more culturally literate and more culturally competent. ----this is where this paragraph will conect to the paragraph in paper one that starts out with "technology has brought a whole new meaning..."
BULK about second video--
A second video produced by Michael Wesch is called "Information R/Evolution". This is another thought provoking video. When I watched this video for the first time I was awestruck. This video contains so much information about how the internet is changing society as individuals and society as a whole. The title of the video is explaining the revolution of technology and the evolution of technology. This video differs from Wesch's first video because it focuses solely on the internet. Wesch's first video focused on technology in the classroom. If we are talking about cultural literacy and cultural competency, by watching the second video it is clear that the internet is making society much stronger in both areas. "Information R/Evolution" talks about how the internet is full of categories. There is no bookshelf on the internet. In the past there were bookshelves and it took experts to find things on shelves and in a filing system. Now, with the internet, we are the experts. The internet makes you think in a whole new way. When you search online for something you have to know what you are wanting to search for and you have to know how to search for it. The internet has links. If you click on a page, that page can lead you to another page. The information doesn't end. You can always keep clicking on links. Every new page that you click on will expand your mind in some way. You will read a new headline, or see a new picture of something that stuns you. The internet is ever changing. In a college classroom, if there is technology available there is endless information available and if it is used properly it could benefit you greatly.
