Running head: RHETORICAL ANALYSIS 1

Rhetorical Analysis

Educational Technology in Curriculum Development-Second Edition

by Derek Rowntree

Edgar Orozco

The University of Texas at El Paso

RWS 1301

Dr. Vierra

October 18, 2018

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Abstract

The importance of this research is to let society know of the complications with

educational technology. This paper focuses on all types of students being affected by the

problems of educational technology. In this case the research being conducted would be on how

exactly educational technology is negatively impacting education everywhere. In further research

it was found, that by having technology conduct most of the education to students, teachers

began to lack the important basics of teaching and interactive techniques with students. In order

to depart from this problem, teachers should stop relying on technology for everything and use it

when necessary, and ultimately focus on the students learning and understanding.
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Rhetorical Analysis:

Educational Technology in Curriculum Development-Second Edition

In this book by Derek Rowntree (1982), the use of rhetorical appeals as in ethos, pathos,

and logos can be manipulated and are used as the form of persuasion towards the audience to

really get the audience involved and understanding of what the problem is. In Rowntree's (1982)

monograph the main idea is how educational technology keeps enhancing and making life better

for society. Although educational technology is making it easier, a problem has been detected by

many educationalists. I believe with the claim being implied by Rowntree (1982), because in

society many professors have started depending heavily on educational technology to basically

run the whole course and not applying any knowledge towards the students. Which will for sure

then negatively affect the idea of using education as a way of changing and shaping society into

more knowledgeable human beings.

According to Rowntree (1982), the claim being made is that educational technology is

not what everyone believes it is. Educational technology is in other words, the design and

evaluation of curricula and learning experiences. (Rowntree) (p.1) Educational technology is also

said to be the real techniques used to teach, such as more hands-on and more in-depth lessons

with students that with the help of enhancing technology, will better the learning environment

and understanding the students will take on with them into the world rather than being restricted

to nothing, but pure technology. Therefore stressing the idea that educational technology should

not be confused with electronic gadgetry (Rowntree) (p.1)

The idea of rhetoric can have many definitions given to it by society, however, it is

evident that the most accurate definition of the word can be explained, due to the similarities in

many of author’s definitions. According to Rose (1981), it is said that the way rhetoric is defined

is by the way a piece of work is organized and how revision is the proper way to enhance the
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quality of your paper, which overall can catch the attention of the audience and have a bigger and

better impact. Rhetoric can also be viewed in the way used by Covino and Jolliffe (1995), as the

way of finding ways to shape and create a piece of writing to the point where it will grab the

audience's attention by creating persuasive arguments that can lead society to change the point of

view that something is seen as. This type of situation can lead to the meaning of using the

techniques ethos, pathos and logos. As described by Downs (2017), the three famously used

techniques can be manipulated to the advantage of the author for example, for his or her claim to

be viewed as the best solution their situation can possibly have.

According to Finn (2006), when it comes to what genre and its meaning are all about. It

mainly must deal with its own style and the way that it is used in. What is being implied here

would be that in order to understand what to look for in literature, one would have to classify and

see what traits it has in common with certain others to be in categories As said by Finn (2006),

styles it is the way of classifying what kind of genre and field of literature this piece of work falls

into. This would come to be very helpful because classifying the work can help it be more

suitable for the user

Discussion

Audience

According to Ede and Lunsford (1984), the idea to have the attention of an audience and

how to address them is very crucial. In this article two main sides are presented, a side that does

not believe audience shall be tamed and the opposite side having the ultimate idea to do anything

to make sure the audience being targeted is addressed, even if throughout the article Ede and

Lunsford (1984), were faced with many positive and negative points being made to both the
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claims described. Rowntree (1982) has set out to target an audience that can help change the

situation he strongly claims as being the lack of the right use towards technology and the absence

of basic teaching and learning techniques in the educational world. The audience being targeted

are teachers and educationalists around the world that have the power to change the current

concerning situation to a more beneficial one for future students. According to Rowntree (1982),

the educational world should realize and be able to apply and importance to these teaching

techniques and be able to provide students with something they will be able to do with that they

learned that they could not do before they were taught anything in the first place. (p.7)

Ethos

Ethos can be described as the details and ideas the author states in order to make himself

more believable to his or her audience. Throughout the paragraphs provided, the reader can tell

that the technique of ethos is being implemented in the piece of writing. The author has

proceeded to provide the audience with the thoughts and ideas that educational technology has

done nothing but lower the true meaning of engaged teaching and interaction in the classroom

with the students. The author states that teachers believe nowadays that education knows what it

is doing (Rowntree, 1982, p.2). Teachers have come to the point where they rely on all the

benefits and easy shortcuts that educational technology offers, to do the teaching which is what

Rowntree (1982) argues. It is implied that new and better educational technology is needed in

society, but the type of technology that will help students positively and not negatively.

Explanations and interactions between students and teachers should be more pushed so that the

student better understand the subject. Rhetoric is being implemented by stating the shaping and

creation of writing, but in this case, it would be the shaping of new technology into the
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classrooms to create a better environmental setting for students, making them see a certain point

of view as described by Covino and Jolliffe (1995).

Pathos

Rowntree (1982) has implemented the idea of pathos to society by really engaging in the

idea about new educational technologies being ineffective to the classroom and being a waste of

time and money. New technologies have made many educationalists become concerned with the

whole system idea. (p.2-3) Pathos is said to be a technique in which authors use emotional ideas

to trigger the audience's emotions, and most likely change the way they see the whole subject

and start to side with the author as the audience have been persuaded. In this case, the author is

basically implementing and verbally showing its audience what the process of their children’s

future is at now and what it could be at stake in the future as well. Rowntree really stresses the

matter on how new technologies should evolve in a positive manner, which will provide a better

and brighter future with many more opportunities than people have nowadays, for the children to

come and the generation that will take over society one day. Although new types of technology

should be implemented into the classrooms, the will and want to increase basic teaching and

people skills should be further enhanced since that is what sparked our technology world in the

first place.

Logos

Logos is another form of audience persuasion, as the authors use facts or statistics to

make his ideas even more credible and to better convince the audience. Rowntree (1982), has

used logos in the way of using other authors who are skilled and professionals in educational

technology. According to Rowntree (1982), the subject on educational technology has been in

the process of enhancing for several years now. To promote how important and well thought out

this topic has been these past couples of years, the author has used other authors that argue and
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claim the similar situation that also supports his claim in a big way by mentioning them into this

monograph, giving a credible example of logos to the audience. (p. 4) An idea given a lot of

importance, would be on how the plan for future generations should be very well constructed like

Covino and Jolliffe (1995) said, so that the main future common goal will be to provide the

students with beneficial and many techniques that will help them learn and understand all of the

ideas and lectures talked about in class that they did not have access to before. When looking at

all the values and objectives that are being explained carefully, are to be taken in a serious

manner, as they will determine how to really understand students and their learning environment

by teachers finding ways to pass on knowledge to students using a more effective technique.

Conclusion

Even though Rowntree (1982) wrote this in 1982 where technology was not advanced

compared to what we see today, he and along with other authors noticed a serious problem.

Rowntree (1982) used persuading techniques to help the audience realize what the problem is

and how it is having a negative impact on education. In conclusion, the problem developing in

educational technology is becoming more of an issue due to the fact that our future depends on

the students that are not being interacted or taught correctly inside their classrooms. This matter

shall have any importance since as parents and society, would be for their kids and friends to be

well enough educated to further these educational practices and make the world and generations

to come a lot more knowledgeable.

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References

Covino, William, and David Jolliffe. (1995). What is Rhetoric. In William Covino and David

Jolliffe (Ed.), Rhetoric: Concept, Definitions, Boundaries (pp.3-26). Boston: Allyn and

Bacon.

Downs, D., (2017). Rhetoric: Making Sense of Human Interaction and Meaning-Making. In D.

Downs. (3rd ED.), Writing about Writing (pp.447-479). Boston, MA: Bedford/St.

Martin’s.

Lisa Ede, & Andrea Lunsford. (1984). Audience Addressed/Audience Invoked: The Role of

Audience in Composition Theory and Pedagogy. College Composition and

Communication, (2), 155. https://doi.org/10.2307/358093

Finn, A., & Kushmerick, N. (2006). Learning to classify documents according to genre. Journal

of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 57(11), 1506-1518.

doi:10.1002/asi.20427

Rose. M, (2017). Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling of Language. In D. Downs and E.

Wardle. (3rd ED.), Writing about Writing (pp.787-802). Boston, MA: Bedford/St.

Martin’s.

Rowntree, D. (1982). Educational Technology in Curriculum Development: Second Edition.

Great Britain: British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data