A Learning Experience

Usually when I read textbooks I am very uninterested in what I am reading and tend to get bored easily. This chapter kept me very interested in what I was reading. Each example showed how pathos, ethos, or logic can be used to persuade a reader. The examples were each about a completely different topic, which helped to keep my attention. I did not feel like I was reading the same essay in different styles.
Robert Baptiste's article about the No Child Left Behind Act was quite interesting to me. I remember hearing a lot about this act in high school. This article made me think about how my school executed this act. They followed it very strictly. Textbooks for every student, qualified teachers, and benchmarks. There were no exceptions to the act as there was in Hawaii. I believe that people benefit from the experiences of others. Hawaii is doing a great thing by integrating culture into education. It is important that students learn the heritage of their land and where they come from. I do not believe in is necessary to have a degree to speak in a classroom. I think that if my school had allowed for some exemptions to the act like Hawaii did, my cultural experience would have been greatly enriched.
Another editorial that really caught my attention was Montini's "Who would call warrior 'squaw'?" This article focused on the word 'squaw', which is considered a derogatory way of saying Native American woman. Some people do not believe the squaw has a negative conotation, yet when the first Native American woman died in combat in Iraq, no one called her a squaw. This article got me thinking about the Iraq War. My dad served overseas in this war twice before retiring from the Navy. He has seen soldiers die in combat, and he wouldn't dare call a Native American woman a squaw.
This chapter opened my eyes to the different styles of writing editorials. I was eager to read it and felt like I got a lot of solid information out of it.