#eng29908

Just like with every other community, the education community has norms, too.  Common Core is changing those norms.  I hope to speak to the audience of people who are against changing the norms.  It is okay to change things in the education world if it is going to better the education for our future generations.  Common Core will do just that.  Our future generations will feel more comfortable in the classroom and will ultimately learn more.  Teachers, administrators, parents, and any other opposing members of this community need to read the pros before they believe the cons.

The discourse audience for my research project is anyone who uses TV and the newspaper as their primary sources of news.  Most people are already aware of how conservative Fox News is and how liberal CNN is, but don't know what drives these biases and how their owning companies play a role in this.  I believe it is important for people to know where their news is really coming from and seek out more than one side on any topic appearing on the news. 

The discourse audience for my research project would be the people that partake in file sharing a.k.a. piracy. This is a wide range of people including hackers, college students, or any number of randoms. Generally these people consider it to be "file sharing" instead of piracy. It makes it seem less illegal. They also use multiple terms in their community to talk about what is being done and these terms are seeding, leeching, torrents, etc. The social norms are that if it exists it can be found on the internet. They don't necessarily take it to be cheap but because they are interested in acquiring it quickly or because they want to sample it. Their values include being able to share content with each other without limitations. They hold the beliefs that they should be able to share files freely without having to worry about hefty punishments.

Everyday public is effected in much the same way. It becomes a taking sides issue within families and friendships. Some families may disown those within or successfully convince them hat it is an alright thing the country did. Friendships may be torn apart but others could form upon having the same ideologies. It is a multisided issue that almost every person in the world has a view upon. Whether it is for or against global warming,those that believe in global cooling, total skepticism on the reality of either event, or those that do not have any interest at all.

One situation that i can think of is  if the local school board is considering firing a popular teacher. There is a choice because they can decide whether or not to fire them. there is also language part of this because a sympathetic parent might then be compelled to take the microphone at the meeting or write a letter to someone on behalf of the teacher.

All to often us teachers see students who are struggling and NEED our help.  Rhetorical situation-- As a teacher, I see a student who is struggling in school.  Struggling more than just with school work, but socially and physically, too.  I have the choice to act on this and help this student.  Or, I can simply watch as he/she throws their life away because they just cannot seem to get out of that funk.  Ervin would say this is rhetorical because in this situation, the issue at hand can be changed.  Secondly, this modification can be done through an appropriate use of language.  I can go to district and report this.  Or I can send a note home to the parents.  There are many options which also shows characteristics of a rhetorical situation. 

With each of these messages the public interprets them in many different ways. A person's ability to see, hear, smell, taste, and feel these ideas, interpret them, and then understand them is public literacy. No too people are alike just as no to messages are totally alike. These differences come from where one comes from, where one is, where he/she plans on going, personality, ideologies, and schooling. Each set of circumstances that enter into a person's life increases or decreases upon their public literacy. Just as one can live in the middle of America and not understand the act and art of graffiti in coastal cities so too can a coastal city person not understand why some in middle America choose to drive huge trucks and go muddin. That's not to say that there are not those that do understand in this way; the point is that is it upbringing and who we are that determines the amount of the multitude of public rhetoric one can understand. This knowledge can be expanded to accommodate many of the world publics.