Unit 4Assignment Example: Tablets for SAISD Students

Steve Smith

Kaplan University

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please note that this is a sample Unit4Assignment to help inspire and guide your own original writing of the Assignment. Be sure to review the Assignment instructions and grading rubric, complete each task in the instructions, and contact the instructor with any questions.

Tablets for SAISD Students

Julian Castro, a keynote speaker at the 2012 Democratic Convention, touted San Antonio’s innovative education programs like Pre-K for SA and Café College, programs meant to give academically unprepared or impoverished students greater opportunities (Castro, 2012). America is a place of opportunity, but the government must provide the resources for achieving the American dream, and he believes education is the foundation for this upward mobility (Castro, 2012).Providing students in the San Antonio Independent School District (SAISD) with tablets will offer just such an opportunity.In order to improve academic performance and help SAISD students compete with peers in higher-rated districts when applying to college, the district needs to provide every high school student with an electronic tablet; this will encourage more learning outside of the classroom and increase mastery of skills.

The appeals of logos, ethos, and pathos will all be beneficial for persuading an audience.

As evidence that students in the district need this boost, one needs only look at how the SAISD students compare to others in the state of Texas. One evaluator of Texas schools, Local School Directory, indicates that the district’s graduation rate is 51.5%, more than 20% below the state average, while the dropout rate of 10.9 % is more than double the state’s average of 4% (2014). Citing well-respected innovators like Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Khan Academy’s Salman Khan, who promote technology as a way to provide teachers with the tools they need to motivate, challenge, and support students, will also strengthen the argument that technology can make a difference. Finally, including specific examples showing that students can make dramatic improvements thanks to technology could appeal to pathos while also providing further evidence. A key element of ethos will be to acknowledge and address potential objections: some voice concerns that technology costs too much to make the investment advisable, while others fret that technology will dehumanize education. Such concerns ignore the steep costs schools already pay to textbook publishers and the ways that technology can actually personalize education.

Based on the thesis statement and fact that all appeals can be used, this argument would fit the Toulmin Model. The assumption (warrant) the audience should agree with is that anything that could benefit students’ learning and create greater opportunities should be attempted. As noted above, challenges like cost and dehumanization caused by technology would need to be addressed. Minnesota’s Byron ISD experiment suggests that that technology combined with a thoughtful pedagogy can have a positive impact on learning, and that technology can even reduce costs. Teachers realized that designing their own curriculum meant they could adapt the curriculum as needed; technology actually afforded them the opportunity to personalize their students’ learning (Fulton, 2013), and they were able to abandon costly textbooks (Fulton, 2013).Anecdotal and cause/effect fallacies will be the main ones to avoid. While examples are helpful for supporting an argument, an audience will not be convinced that the school district should spend this money without numerous, reliable examples and studies from credible institutions that show technology improves test scores and graduation rates.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

References

Castro, A.(2011, January 19).Texas cutting $5 billion from public schools.The Huffington Post.Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/19/texas-school-budget-cuts_n_811039.html.

Fulton, K.(2013).Byron’s flipped classrooms.Education Digest, 79(1), 22–26.

LocalSchoolDirectory.com.(2014).San Antonio Independent School District.Retrieved from http://www.localschooldirectory.com/district-schools/015907/San-Antonio-Independent-School-District-(ISD)/TX.

 

 

3 paragraph

 

stance + main points = thesis

 

 My thesis statement is   Health insurance( must have an argumentative focus.)

 

What make an argument effective? Facts

Audience

 

In this  unit, you will prepare a strong argument for change in your community or workplace by refining your thesis statement and identifying possible logical fallacies you could encounter in researching and supporting your argument. Using the Toulmin Model of an argument.

In this unit’s Assignment, you will write a persuasive thesis statement related to an argument for change and evaluate the effectiveness of that argument using the Toulmin Model. You will write three well-developed paragraphs addressing the following:

Part I: First of all, you will revise the provisional thesis statement that you generated in the previous unit Discussion. Make sure the thesis is concise (1–2 sentences) and clearly expresses a persuasive argument related to your topic. Then, identify what type of claim your thesis expresses (policy, value, cause, etc.) and discuss why you think this thesis will be an effective one

Part II: Next, describe how you will use the appeals of logos, ethos, and pathos to make your argument more compelling to your audience.

Part III: Finally, evaluate your argument based on the Toulmin Model. Describe the warrant (assumption), note possible challenges you might face in supporting this argument and what rebuttals will be needed, and determine whether the argument is susceptible to any logical fallacies and whether qualifiers would help to avoid those fallacies.

 

Part III: Finally, evaluate your argument based on the Toulmin Model. Describe the warrant (assumption), note possible challenges you might face in supporting this argument and what rebuttals will be needed, and determine whether the argument is susceptible to any logical fallacies and whether qualifiers would help to avoid those fallacies.