A Rhetorical Analysis of “Titl
Anne C. Lewis writes in her February 2003 article that under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act “high-quality teachers are good test takers – but not necessarily anything more” (Lewis 2003). She goes on stating that under NCLB, what a teacher is all about comes down to the performance on a single test (Lewis 2003). Anne Lewis is a teacher who is active in Phi Delta Kappan, which is a teacher society. She is writing this article to be published in a monthly journal produced by Phi Delta Kappan. She speaks on behalf of teachers who feel “their professional competence is being defined as a test score” to legislators and then general public. Her goal is to persuade legislators to modify or even remove existing laws. She begins by describing what exactly entailed in the NCLB Act. In it, elementary teachers must pass a “rigorous” state test in all subject matter in order to get certified. Middle and Highschool teachers must have at minimum a major in each academic area he or she is teaching and pass a rigorous state test to become certified. Current teachers must meet these requirements by 2006 (Lewis 2003). There are three major points given to support changing the NCLB act. The first being that all these new pr
Her two stronger points revolve around the cost and overall effectiveness of the system. She begins by showing the costs (both obvious and not so obvious), and then stresses how underfunded most states already are. This is about the only way to present/support this argument and seems to be effective at getting the point across. The only thing she could have added might be a case story of a school district in shambles that may appeal to a more personal side of the audience. Lewis’ goal is to show, or at least raise feelings that teacher testing is not the right or most effective way of ensuring a good education for the students. She does this through several points. The weakest being that it takes the joy out of teaching. This is simply a matter of opinion trying to appeal at the readers emotional side. The only way to prove its credibility would be to survey a random sample of teachers and get a general opinion. However her use of the other dimensions of teaching really gives the reader an idea of what most teachers probably feel. Her third and final argument asks the question “what is this massive testing program does not produce higher student achievement?”. To support this claim she gives an example described as :the
Some topics in this essay:
Bill Clinton,
Middle Highschool,
NCLB Act,
Delta Kappan,
Anne Lewis,
lewis 2003,
nclb act,
teacher testing,
anne lewis,
teachers meet requirements,
Phi Delta,
test lewis 2003,
test lewis,
straight forward,
delta kappan,
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2003 goes,
phi delta,
highly qualified,
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Approximate Word count = 837
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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