Mike Rose I Just Wanna Be Average Analysis

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Mike Rose shares his personal story to the public in “I just wanna be average”, as he reveals the many flaws within the educational system of a high school in an economically depressed neighborhood in Los Angeles. He effectively directs his arguments towards both educators and parents by utilizing emotional and logical appeals. By convincing the audience to fear that children placed on remedial tracks are being hindered rather than assisted, the author causes both awareness and a feeling of duty to change the way we handle teaching children. Rose presents his argument by aiding the reader through the eyes of his younger self as he retells the story of his years in high school. This useful perspective is utilized well by Rose, as he describes the classes and teachers of Voc. Ed. with the right amount of detail; enough for the readers to immerse …show more content…

While transitioning between his two tones in his reading, the author steps out of the main story to address the reader more directly in order to appeal to authority. He explains in a more detailed fashion why the students end up behaving so uninterestingly towards anything academic. This appeal is also logical in the sense of following the mind process of a student in a remedial class; from wanting to learn something new, to telling him or herself “Why bother?” and giving up on school. Rose presents his argument using all of the three classical appeals. He uses his emotional appeals well, and could be considered unbiased, based on his discussing both sides of the spectrum with respect to teaching. Rose wants schools to have a better program for children in need, as they are the future, they’ll be the ones in charge when they grow up, and they need to be taught well. At the end of the story, the readers are filled with hope that with this call of action, society as a whole will help these children, instead of pushing them down that economic hole that is hard to get out