Clarification of three kinds of ESL Programs

Rossell, Christine H. "The near end of bilingual: Prop 227 was supposed to eliminate bilingual education from California's schools. For the most part, it succeeded-- and student performance is climbing slowly upward." Education Next. Gale. 3.4. 2003. p44(9). 13 March 2010.

This article talks about Prop 227 in California. Prop 227 was supposed to end bilingual education. The schools and parents fought it and refused to follow it. The article focuses on the three versions of ESL programs, and gives the benefits and reasons why people like those programs and choose to put their english learning children in them.

ESL Segregates

Wood, Michelle R. "ESL and Bilingual education as a proxy for racial and ethnic segregation in the U.S. schools (English as a Second Language)." Journal of Gender, Race and Justice. Gale. 11.3. 2008. p 279(30) 13 March 2010.

This article argues the disadvantages of ESL programs. The author believes that ESL programs create segregation in the public schools. By placing students with an english proficiency in separate classrooms creates segregation between white students and brown students. There are already problems between cultures as it is and ESL programs continues to promote those programs. The author does agree that it helps with their grades but they believe there is a better way.

ESL Programs

Guzman, Joseph M. "Learning English: strange as it may seem, new evidence shows it is better to know two languages but be taught math in English." Education Next. Gale. 2.3. 2002. pg. 58-65. 13 March 2010.

This article discusses the benefits of bilingual education. The author is a really big fan of ESL (English as a Second Language) programs in public schools. These programs put students in English classrooms, but at time during the day they put them into smaller discussion groups to help them out with their homework and the language. He spends the majority of the article discussing what an ESL program does and the benefits of having one.

Bilingual in Books

Jeffers, Dawn. "Bilingual Books For ESL Students... And Beyond." Children & Libraries: The Journal of The Association for Library Service to Children. EBSCO. Vol. 7, Issue 3. 2009. pg. 38-39. 10 March 2010.

This article is about Raven Tree Press' plan to create bilingual material. They believe it is important for those who only speak spanish to learn english and vice versa. By creating these materials not only will children learn a second language, but Raven Tree Press believes that they will develop and understanding for multicultural awareness and help the global economy in the long run.

Both Sides

Worsnop, Richard L. "Bilingual Education." CQ Researcher. CQ Press. 13 August 1993. 10 March 2010.

This article is about the bilingual education debate that has been going on for a while. It gives great information for both sides. It starts off with a story about a boy who moved from the Dominican Republic to Boston and learned English through bilingual education. It also gives quotes from a teacher who is very against bilingual education. It has more arguments than those two and gives the opinions of both sides.

More than just Spanish

Glod, Maria. "Schools Try Elementary Approach To Teaching Foreign Languages." The Washington Post. Aug. 2006. EBSCO database.

This article says that government and business leaders are asking for more bilingual speakers. How to get those? Foreign language classes in school. School districts around Washington D.C. are starting foreign language classes as early as kindergarden. One teacher is teaching some of her lessons in Spanish and some in English. An other is doing the same thing only with French and English. The goal is to help immigrants learn English and also to help English speakers do better later in life as bilinguals.

Learning Second Language as Adults Experiment

Kaushanskaya, M. "Bilingualism Reduces Native Language Interference During Novel-Word Learning." Journal of Experimental Psychology - Learning Memory and Cognition 35. 829-35. Scholar Search: Articles and More. 8 March 2010.

This article is the layout of an experiment about learning a second language. Learning a second language is harder for adults because their first language has already been engrained in their brain. Meaning that they can comprehend what letters make what sounds and what organization of what letters creates a word or an object. The experiment compares and contrasts monolinguals and bilinguals. It seemed that the bilinguals scored better with learning a new language than the monolinguals. But not by much. (They didn't actually "learn" a new language. They were more given sounds with an "english translation.)

Introduction to Bilingualism

Baker, Colin. Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. Clevedon, Avon, England; Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters. 1996.

This book introduces the reader to bilingualism. It covers many topics of interest including: individual and societal concepts in minority and majority languages; childhood developmental perspectives; general bilingual education issues, bilingual classrooms and political and ideological perspectives. I think it will help get the reader on the right path as to what the opinions are for what side. it is available in the Harold B. Lee Library.

Why is learning a second language so hard?

Goldin-Meadow, Susan. "Tutorials in Bilingualism: Psycholinguistic Perspective." American Scientist. n.p. Sept- Oct 1998. 486. 8 March 2010

This magazine article describes the study of second language learning. The author wonders why - if most things are easier the second time around - language is harder to learn the second time around. They have also noticed that the older you are, the harder it is to learn a second language. At the end of the summary, however, the author does say that is is a very intense article. It is not for beginners. They suggest only those who have background in language learning and processing should use this article. (So I'm guessing if you have learned a second language before you might be fine.)

Bilingual Education: Where do we start, and where do we end?

Jost, Kenneth. "Bilingual Education vs. English Immersion." CQ Researcher. CQ Press. 11 December 2009. 8 March 2010.

This article uses a personal experience with a family to give the opinions of an Arizona town on bilingual education. They tell the story of Miriam Flores and her daughter when it came time to go to elementary school. Miriam's daughter was taught in spanish until 3rd grade. Her third grade class was only English speaking. Miriam, daughter of Miriam, had trouble with this change and her grades dropped dramatically. Miriam and many other spanish speakers in Arizona would like there to be an easier transition from spanish to english classes. The article tells of their federal case with the government. It also has tabs to take you to certain parts of the article. For example: the background and the current situation.

Bordering on Absurdity is trustworthy

Michael Mandel wrote an article titled "Bordering on Absurdity" for Business Weekly. Right underneath his title he said, "Cars can move more easily from country to country than people, and that is crimping both human potential and economic growth." I thought it summed up the article quite nicely. Mandel is pro immigration and he will use the article to tell the readers why.

Ehtos is a "persuasive strategy built on trust" says Gary Layne Hatch (Writing and Rhetoric chapter 4). We generally trust those who have authority and/or those who have good characteristics (is. knowledgeable, experienced, reliable, etc.). There are a few moments in Mandel's paper where he makes it easy to trust him.

The first thing I noticed was that the article was found on businessweek.com. The title is exactly what it says. Weekly Business articles. An article on this website would seem trustworthy to the reader because the website itself is truthful and trustworthy.

Mandel also gains the readers' trust in paragraph 6. He is talking about an other economist's research to prove his pint on immigration. Not only does he give this economist authority by telling the reader that he is from UC Berkeley, but he also gives the reader al ink to the economist's own article on the subject. Showing the audience where he got his information is a huge sign to trust him.

At the very end of the article it says "Mandel is chief economist for BusinessWeek." That shows the reader that Mandel is also in a position of authority, and so he is therefore trustworthy.

Audience Analysis

Mandel's article on immigration is written very well for any audience. The reason why is hte structure of his article. He has an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. Inside of the body he has headers to organize the different catagories he will talk about. So it is very easy to understand where his article is going. An other good thing he has in his article is that he has a rebuttal with every point he makes. he lets the reader know what the other side is saying, and then defends his side according to the other side's opinion. The structure makes it easy for all audiences to read this article and understand Mandel's opinion. He can't hide anything, there is no reading in between the lines. This allows the reader to take the information given to them and go their own way. I think that it is important that his article is written to all audiences so that he has the opportunity to change some reader's opinions to his own.

Beck's emotional Bash on Obama

Roy Beck's article "What A Jobs-Focused State-of-the-Union Address Ought to say about Immigration" gives his opinion on what to do about jobless Americans. He believes that legal and illegal immigrants are taking jobs from Americans. He appeals to his audience through their emotions (pathos), and metaphors and personification (language tools). Unfortunately for him, he also has some fallacies.

Good Pathos should use the audience's emotions to persuade them to side with the author and take action. An example for this would be a presidential candidate visiting an elementary school, reading a book to the kids, and giving them hugs and handshakes. American voters who are parents of little kids will be touched that this candidate cares about kids. Those parents will most likely vote for that candidate. An other form of pathos is getting to the audience's angry emotions. This is what Beck does in his article.

Beck immediately grabs the audience's angry emotions by opening his article up with "What Pres. Obama says -- or doesn't say..." By telling the audience that President Obama is not saying something, he is implying that Obama is keeping something from U.S. Citizens. Hearing that the leader of America was not telling the people something would upset the reader. Especially if the reader was an American citizen.

Word choice is very important when it comes to Pathos. Beck claims that "Americans are suffering catastrophic unemployment" because the "illegal immigrants" are stealing jobs (para. 4 & 11). The two phrases "catastrophic unemployment" and "illegal immigrants" should grab the reader's attention and emotions. The words catastrophic, unemployment and illegal describe negative actions or situations. When putting them in his sentences, Beck has been able to create negative emotions about immigration.

Paragraph 12 is just full of negative emotions towards the government and immigration. Beck talks about “chain migration.” Chain migration is pretty much an immigrant receiving a green card in the U.S. They then can bring their family into the U.S., and their spouse can bring their family, and it just keeps going. Beck does not give any opinion on the matter, but he doesn’t need to. Just these facts alone will create negative emotions.

Beck also uses a metaphor and an example of personification. The metaphor in paragraph 16 is really good. “… suffering U.S. workers begging for jobs just outside their hiring gates.” If the reader takes this sentence literally; they should imagine people dressed in ragged clothing pressed up against a locked gate, begging the key holder to let them in. But as most of us know, a metaphor is not supposed to be taken literally. So the reader would then know that the sentence simply means that many Americans are applying for jobs and not getting hired.

In paragraph 5, Beck uses an example of personification to try to get his point across. Personification is when a human characteristic or trait is given to something that is not human; like an animal or object. The sentence is “Every principle of justice calls for those jobs to be transferred to 7million unemployed Americans.” “Calls for” is the human trait and “principle of justice” is the nonhuman thing.

As good as Beck was with his pathos and language tools, he also had some fallacies in his article. The title of the article is “What A Jobs-Focused State-of-the-Union Address Ought To Say About Immigration.” The title tells the reader that the author has an opinion about immigration that they feel the president whould address. However, Beck uses his article on immigration to bash the president. He seems to be trying to trap the president into saying something – or not saying something – that could get him into trouble. Beck has three obvious attacks towards President Obama in his article. His first attack is the very first sentence of the article. “What Pres. Obama says – or doesn’t say – about immigration wil be the easiest tip-off to whether his first priority truly is putting Americans back to work.” He is already implying that Obama is not telling the whole truth and possible not care about Americans getting jobs.

In paragraph 8 he then says “This should be easy for Pres. Obama…” Beck is pretty sarcastic throughout this article, so he most likely does not believe that what he wants Obama to do will be easy for him.

His third attack is in paragraph 13. He starts off the paragraph by saying, “No president whose top concern is putting his unemployed fellow citizens back to work would allow this to continue.” As there have been no major movements to stop immigrants being hired in place of Americans, he has now “proved’ that this is not a top concern of Obama’s. But he trapped Obama with the “poisoning of the well” fallacy. Obama can’t defend himself without somehow proving Beck to be right. The reason there was any fallacy was because Beck led the reader to believe that he wanted to give an idea about immigration, when he really used it to Bash Obama as a president.

Parker is Pro Immigration

Laura Parker wrote an article for USA Today called "USA just wouldn't work without immigration labor." She believes that immigrant workers are a positive attribute to the United State's economy. Because immigration is usually a negative subject, Parker would need to some logical and powerful reasons as to why immigration is positive. Phil has already posted on the logos of this article. He commented on how Parker's logos was not strong enough. Although I understand and agree with what he said, I found moments in the article where Parker's logos was pretty strong.

According to Gary Layne Hatch, "logos has a broader meaning than logic." Logos is "arguing through reasoning," it is "rational thought through language," and "appeals to our ability to think." So the information in an argument should make the reader really think about what was said and then formulate their own opinion.

One of the very first things Parker says in her article is that immigrants "fill low-income jobs scorned by American citizens." (Para. 2) That sentence should make the reader think about that jobs that they "scorn" and if those jobs are taken up by immigrants. For example, I don't like working fast food. When I am looking for a new job I will not apply to any fast food places. And if you look at places like McDonalds, Taco Bell and Wendy's, a good portion of their crew are hispanic immigrants.

To go along with the above paragraph, Parker quotes John Gay, a lobbyist for the American Hotel and Lodging Association, who is pro immigration. He says that as Americans we "push our own children into college to be rocket scientists or computer programmers." (Para. 6) With Americans getting better education degrees, they will be going after the higher jobs, leaving the lower jobs for the immigrants. I look at my own life as an example. My fiance and I are born U.S. citizen college students. We will graduate with a Bachelor's in our different areas and get pretty decent jobs. His parents, however, are legal immigrants from El Salvidor. They did not get past an elementary education, so they can only get a lower job. But it's very nice that they can still find one.

In paragraph 11, Parker says that immigration is part of America's history. The examples she gives are the European immigrants that built the Brooklyn Bridge and the Chinese immigrants that built the railroads connecting the Atlantic to the Pacific. This should make the reader think about other historical examples of immigrants helping out America. The one that came to my mind was the Irish factory workers during the industrial revolution.

Laura Parker's article on immigration gives enough information and good examples for the reader to really think about what she is saying. The reader should use what she says to think about their own life or information that they might already know. They should then put the two together and create their own opinion. In making this possible, Parker's article has great logos in it.

"Our View on Legal Immigration: Congratulations, graduate. Now Leave the USA."

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/05/our-view-on-legal-immigration-congratulations-graduate-now-leave-the-usa.html#more

I would like to talk about the Kairos of this article. Kairos is presenting your argument at the right time, in the right circumstances, in the right place and to the right audience. I think it pretty clever that USA Today looked at their immigration concerns in a different light. Instead of focusing on illegal immigration and the disputes on that, they talk about legal immigrants who come for college and then stay. I think that the timing to address this was perfect. The reason being is that people have been frustrated with illegal immigrants taking the lowend jobs for so long that action seems to be dying out. So USA Today brings us to the attention that legal immigrants are also taking jobs in the U.S. They are taking the high paying jobs. Now in order to get positive responses on this article USA Today needs to make sure that the right people are reading this article and under the right circumstances. Because USA Today is a newspaper I don’t believe it will be hard for the right audience to come upon this article. The right audience would be those who are interested in immigration and/or those who are also against immigration. The very best circumstances would be while a bill, law, or proposition on immigration is in the process of being voted for and passed. This article was published on May 12,2009. So all of the voting was obviously finished. But I still believe it was a good time to publish it. The reason why is because opinions were slowing down about the results of the current elections, and the public would need something else to focus their attention on. Legal immigrants taking the jobs that many Americans so desperately need seemed like a great idea.