TOW #1- …And Don’t help Your Kids With Their Homework

  

            Releasing a groundbreaking story to parents across the world, the author Dana Goldstein, on behalf of the researchers Keith Robinson and Angel Harris, stated in the magazine Atlantic the effect of parental involvement in school on the improvement of their children’s education. Using the data that Robinson and Harris published in the article The Broken Compass: Parental Involvement With Children’s Education, Goldstein stated that although parental participation often serves for the purpose of increasing the student’s academic wellness, it actually doesn’t affect it and that their involvement sometimes even backfires due to the burdensome pressures that the students feel from their parents.

            Using ethos and logos to appeal to all parents, the author refers to sociologist Annette Lareau’s observation on how the socioeconomic status of the student and the choice of teacher effects the improvement in students’ grades more effectively than the parental involvement does. She continues to support her reliability through using the statistics made by the University of Texas and gives an example for her argument saying that Asian Americans, even with uninvolved parents can perform well in school.

            The author’s purpose is to let the working parents know that they shouldn’t feel guilty of not being able to make time to participate in their children’s’ school events, because it will not affect their children’s grades. She also informs the parents who endlessly put their effort into school thinking that it will influence their children, because their children’s well being in school is dependent on their children’s performance and not theirs’. However, she states that parents should engage in school activities not for the beneficiaries of their children but to have a good citizenship. In the article, the audience was evidently shown in the title being said, “don’t help your kids with their homework” and when the author asked several questions directed to parents during the article. Overall, the author successfully portrayed her purpose to her targeted audience through using the effective rhetorical devices of ethos and logos.