Jori Pace
Professor Reece
English 1020
September 7, 2014
Rough Draft Rhetorical Analysis
I feel as though this author did an awesome job at reaching their audience through this article. Her audience is anyone with a learning disability that is trying to get a college education, and searching for help. Also she is trying to reach out to teachers, parents, and the peers of these students which are struggling with a learning disability. In general this article can benefit and reach out to many audiences as she is trying to educate people on how to give people with LD a fair chance at an education. She is effectively reaching her audience by being clear and stating the steps in order for them to get help in the transition from High School to college, and also coming up with ideas to help their early educators to help them prepare for the next stage in their career in general education. At the beginning of the article in paragraph two it states: “ the number of students with disabilities who enroll each year in college has increased (Wolanin &Steele, 2004). Data from a longitudinal study in 2011 examining students with disabilities' post-high-school outcomes indicated that 15.5% of those who enrolled at 4-year institutions were identified as having LD. ADHD was not listed as a disability category, but it may have been included in the 19.5% of students who were identified as having “other health impairments” (Stanford et al., 2011). Despite enrolling, once they start to attend, students with disabilities do not keep pace with their peers without disabilities in relation to earning their degrees. Sanford and colleagues found that within 6 years of completing high school, only 29.4% of students with disabilities had complete college, as compared to 42.2% of students in the general population. Within 8 years, the percentage rises to 34.2% for students with disabilities (with no specific information about differences by disability category), and 51.2% for students without disabilities (Newman et al., 2011).”
Another main point that the author talks about is educating the students about their own LD. She brings up a good point in the fact that students need to know why they are asking for help and they need to know what their weaknesses are in order to focus on what they should be doing to strengthen the areas that they are struggling in. In step #8 of the article it states: “Students with LD and ADHD need to know how to apply for accommodations when they get to college. So that students are effectively prepared to self-advocate, any transition program must ensure that students are aware of and understand the tests and diagnosing their learning challenges, help students develop a list of helpful accommodations, and teach students how to apply for accommodations.” There are very good strategies and ideas stated in the article to help teachers and other administrators in high school to help the students figure out what they need to be focusing on.
It takes a number of people to help out in the transitioning process but if there are enough people dedicated to helping these students, they can have the same opportunity as their peers without learning disabilities. Some information I found helpful and something I didn’t think about was that one way to really help them transition is to not make every think a piece of cake. Toward their senior year of high school it actually talked about taking away some of the help and to challenge the student more. That is the main struggle with LD, when they get into college everything is much harder and that’s where they start to struggle. They need to start to be treated like a college student toward the end of their high school education.
Elizabeth C. Hamblet, the author of this article has a very big interest in this subject, and she seems genuinely concerned for the population of students with learning disabilities that are trying to attend college. Her article is all about giving the step by step information to help people with LD and ADHD find and apply for assistance at the University which they have chosen to attend. This author was very persuasive with the information she gave, there is very clear instructions for students to go seek for the help and guidance for their college education. Not only was she persuasive in her writing but I feel that she was also motivating. For any student who has a LD that is discouraged and think they can’t attend college, needs to read this article and the information she has clearly provided. A statement that I think sums up the purpose of this article pretty well is in paragraph number four, and it reads: “Students with ADHD have reported that they struggle because of deficits in their organizational skills, academic coping strategies, executive functions, and focusing and sustaining attention (Norvilists, Sun, & Zhang, 2010). Although most students (with and without disabilities) have to make adjustments when they get to college, these new challenges may affect students with LD and ADHD more than others because their disabilities affect learning, and planning – all of which are critical to success in this new academic environment.” This statement to me, in the article is the main focus of what she is trying to get across. Their brains work differently therefor they struggle more than the average college student. It is pretty clear from this statement what she is trying to get across here and who she is trying to reach.
The tone used in this article is a very concerned one. You can tell she really cares about this subject and has listed so many different helpful things. I feel like this article is very well put together and that all the information in it is relevant and very educating. I am interested in the Special Education field and I found this article to be very helpful. It broadened my mind to the different things we can be doing to help disabled students to attend college. There is so much more that we could be doing to make things easier for their transition.
Professor Reece
English 1020
September 7, 2014
Rough Draft Rhetorical Analysis
I feel as though this author did an awesome job at reaching their audience through this article. Her audience is anyone with a learning disability that is trying to get a college education, and searching for help. Also she is trying to reach out to teachers, parents, and the peers of these students which are struggling with a learning disability. In general this article can benefit and reach out to many audiences as she is trying to educate people on how to give people with LD a fair chance at an education. She is effectively reaching her audience by being clear and stating the steps in order for them to get help in the transition from High School to college, and also coming up with ideas to help their early educators to help them prepare for the next stage in their career in general education. At the beginning of the article in paragraph two it states: “ the number of students with disabilities who enroll each year in college has increased (Wolanin &Steele, 2004). Data from a longitudinal study in 2011 examining students with disabilities' post-high-school outcomes indicated that 15.5% of those who enrolled at 4-year institutions were identified as having LD. ADHD was not listed as a disability category, but it may have been included in the 19.5% of students who were identified as having “other health impairments” (Stanford et al., 2011). Despite enrolling, once they start to attend, students with disabilities do not keep pace with their peers without disabilities in relation to earning their degrees. Sanford and colleagues found that within 6 years of completing high school, only 29.4% of students with disabilities had complete college, as compared to 42.2% of students in the general population. Within 8 years, the percentage rises to 34.2% for students with disabilities (with no specific information about differences by disability category), and 51.2% for students without disabilities (Newman et al., 2011).”
Another main point that the author talks about is educating the students about their own LD. She brings up a good point in the fact that students need to know why they are asking for help and they need to know what their weaknesses are in order to focus on what they should be doing to strengthen the areas that they are struggling in. In step #8 of the article it states: “Students with LD and ADHD need to know how to apply for accommodations when they get to college. So that students are effectively prepared to self-advocate, any transition program must ensure that students are aware of and understand the tests and diagnosing their learning challenges, help students develop a list of helpful accommodations, and teach students how to apply for accommodations.” There are very good strategies and ideas stated in the article to help teachers and other administrators in high school to help the students figure out what they need to be focusing on.
It takes a number of people to help out in the transitioning process but if there are enough people dedicated to helping these students, they can have the same opportunity as their peers without learning disabilities. Some information I found helpful and something I didn’t think about was that one way to really help them transition is to not make every think a piece of cake. Toward their senior year of high school it actually talked about taking away some of the help and to challenge the student more. That is the main struggle with LD, when they get into college everything is much harder and that’s where they start to struggle. They need to start to be treated like a college student toward the end of their high school education.
Elizabeth C. Hamblet, the author of this article has a very big interest in this subject, and she seems genuinely concerned for the population of students with learning disabilities that are trying to attend college. Her article is all about giving the step by step information to help people with LD and ADHD find and apply for assistance at the University which they have chosen to attend. This author was very persuasive with the information she gave, there is very clear instructions for students to go seek for the help and guidance for their college education. Not only was she persuasive in her writing but I feel that she was also motivating. For any student who has a LD that is discouraged and think they can’t attend college, needs to read this article and the information she has clearly provided. A statement that I think sums up the purpose of this article pretty well is in paragraph number four, and it reads: “Students with ADHD have reported that they struggle because of deficits in their organizational skills, academic coping strategies, executive functions, and focusing and sustaining attention (Norvilists, Sun, & Zhang, 2010). Although most students (with and without disabilities) have to make adjustments when they get to college, these new challenges may affect students with LD and ADHD more than others because their disabilities affect learning, and planning – all of which are critical to success in this new academic environment.” This statement to me, in the article is the main focus of what she is trying to get across. Their brains work differently therefor they struggle more than the average college student. It is pretty clear from this statement what she is trying to get across here and who she is trying to reach.
The tone used in this article is a very concerned one. You can tell she really cares about this subject and has listed so many different helpful things. I feel like this article is very well put together and that all the information in it is relevant and very educating. I am interested in the Special Education field and I found this article to be very helpful. It broadened my mind to the different things we can be doing to help disabled students to attend college. There is so much more that we could be doing to make things easier for their transition.
Reflection:
This assignment was a little easier for me than the analysis was. The strengths of my paper are that I know quite a bit about special needs and so I feel like I can relate to the author and I know what she is talking about. My weaknesses are that I still think that I am not fully understanding the assignment and including all the requirements in my paper. What I learned about writing a rhetorical analysis is that you are just kind of picking apart the article and looking and it's strengths and weaknesses. I also learned that you can just pick a side and write about it, I was thinking too deep when we were assigned this and I thought it was going to be a lot harder than it was, but once it was explained I understood it and was able to easily analyze and write this paper.
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