School Violence
Dipankar Chakravorty
General Introduction: School violence has been an issue since the mid-19th century. There have been many steps taken to prevent it, for example, increasing school security, harder gun control laws, etc. There are different types of school violence and school shooting is the wildest one. School shooting is becoming the major issue recently. We saw the school shootings happening in Florida all over the news and social media. One of the major cause is the major usage of arms in the United States. The more guns people have in their hands, the more violent thoughts they can think of doing with it.
Source #1-Betsy DeVos’s reported guns-in-schools plan would make schools less safe
https://www.vox.com/2018/8/23/17773554/betsy-devos-guns-schools-arming-teachers
Summary: “Betsy DeVos’s reported guns-in-schools plan would make schools less safe” by German Lopez is a news article posted on August 23,2018, which goes over why new guns in school plans are not the best way to prevent school shootings. There are various types of data to prove the point that more guns have never been a major help in preventing shooters. The conclusion of this article is that to prevent gun violence overall, America should be reducing gun circulation not encouraging to use it.
Rhetorical situation: This article was written to argue against the statement that teachers should be provided with gun power for protection. After the school shooting in Florida and other places, people witnessed teachers not being able to protect students. Some people believe that if the teachers had arms in their hands they could have done something better.
Audience: There are data which are all US based. The title of the article mentions Betsy Devos who is the United States Secretary of Education. This article was posted on Vox, which is known for its explanatory journalism. The article explains the flaws with the plan and rebels against it. This article’s main audience are the people in the government who are trying to promote this gun plan.
Purpose: The main purpose of this article is to inform the law makers that handing guns to the teachers is not the way to end school violence. The author states that, “If a teacher has a gun…if a gun wasn’t around.” By saying this the author wants to convey that there can be more than one scenario leading to a deadly situation. Therefore, promoting the weapon causing violence is not the solution.
Genre: This article was published in Vox, which is an online news site. This source was taken from the politics section. The site is ending with .com. Therefore, the genre of this article is an open source political research.
Stance: The author is trying to state that the more people get their hands on these deadly weapons the more violence is there to occur. “But when researchers control …violence than its developed peers.” This shows the author is anti-gun control.
Source #2-Emotion Meets Policy at School-Safety Panel’s Listening Session
Summary: “Emotion Meets Policy at School-Safety Panel’s Listening Session” by Alyson Klein is a magazine article which was posted on 13th June 2018. This article goes over the listening session held by the Federal School Safety Commission, set up by Donald Trump after the mass shooting in Stoneman Douglas High School. The author provides various quotes from the listening session explaining the steps like give more mental health resources, ban assault weapons, etc., should be taken. In general, this source is trying to share the message that we need to start by taking small steps not a big jump which could possibly cause riots.
Rhetorical Situation: This article was written on the incident at Stoneman Douglass High school shooting. After that incident a commission was held to discuss the methods that should be taken to prevent the next school shooting. Some say more gun control is the way while others say violence cannot be treated with more violence.
Audience: This article was posted on Edweek, which is known for both news and analysis. People in the listening commission get personal and share their own experience on this situation. This article is for the people who were affected by school shootings in America because they could relate the best to the incidents that is being said in the commission.
Purpose: The main purpose of this article is to inform the readers about how the Commission feels about these shootings. The commission has both sided opinions, antigun control and pro-gun control. The article provides a quote saying, “Why are we allowing our government to be so strongly influenced by NRA-backed lobbyists at the expense of American lives” This shows that there is more than one way of handling school violence, which is not just by more guns in the society.
Genre: This article was found in the digital site of this Edweek. This article was related to education because it talks about how to prevent the school shootings in general. Therefore, the genre of this article is Educational project magazine article.
Stance: The article is not biased. The article provides quotes of people who are anti-gun control and pro-gun control. The article is a mix of ways on how to stop school shootings from happening. The author does not state it’s opinion on people’s quotes. The author remains neutral.
Source #3- Oliver North, incoming NRA chief, blames school shootings on ‘culture of violence’
Summary: In the article “Oliver North, incoming NRA chief, blames school shootings on ‘culture of violence’” by Frances Stead Sellers and Michael Scherer discuss previous school shootings. It also explains how violent video games influence people to do more violence in the society. The author provides quotes from Dan Patrick, Lieutenant Governor of Texas, who is trying to say that the society is being pushed towards the wrong directions with violent movies and video games.
Rhetorical Situation: This article was written after the open fire in Texas high school. After that incident in an interview of the NRA president, stating that violence in media is also influencing the society to doing more violent stuff. Media violence can be seen everywhere nowadays. It is highly influential, catchy to the eyes and provoke people to do as they see.
Audience: The article was published on Washington Post which is the largest daily newspaper in America. The Washington Post is read by many Americans daily. The article talks about how video games and movies are influencing the society. In our society the majority of people who play video games are teenagers and young adults. The main audience of this article are teenagers and young adults in America.
Purpose: The main purpose of this article is to let the society know about the other factor, like being influenced by social media, influencing the society to cause these violent actions. “violent video games are … school gun violence.” This proves the fact that there are other factors which are also crucial to be taken care of because people need to change their mentality first. If people change the way they think then they change the way they act.
Genre: This article is an interview of Dan Patrick and other political peoples. In this interview, the ABC host George Stephanopoulos, asks Patrick about what he thinks is the reason why violence like school shooting is occurring in our society. The genre of this article is political commentary news article.
Stance: The authors are not biased. The authors don’t state their opinion. But by looking at the people being interviewed and their thoughts, it can be said that the authors are progun control. The people said that just controlling the way people use guns is not the way to end school violence. “Schools had to … gun in the first place.”” S This states that there should be better protection in schools and higher background checks on people purchasing weapons like that.
Source #4– A rational approach to ending gun violence: Don’t ‘harden’ schools. Make them softer, by improving social and emotional health
Summary: This article by Tom Goral is a scholarly source article posted on June 2018. In this article the author goes over how there is no coordination between systems like the education, criminal justice, and the mental health. It goes over how young adults and teenagers are trying to protest and make their voices heard in the society related to school shootings.
Rhetorical Situation: This article was written after the deadly shooting in Parkland. Many people lost their lives. Their could have been precautions taken if the education, criminal, and the mental health systems shared their data with each other. People are gathering together to convince the government to approach a way to end violence like these once and for all.
Audience: The author starts by explaining how we lack coordination in our own system. As he continues with his research he states that there are many students who are lacking guidance from their counselors because there aren’t that many available. The audience of this article are teenagers going to schools, because they can relate to these situations the most.
Purpose: The purpose of this article is to persuade the people to support the author to make the government hear their voices. “We’re planning an … than just a statement.” The author is trying to say that he is trying to make the society’s voice heard by gathering together and stating that they want to see some action taken to prevent violence.
Genre: This article was published on District Administration. This organizations covers current trends and issues in the K-12 education industry. This article comes under political research because it discusses about how the government should react to these school shootings.
Stance: The author is progun control. The author feels that people should protest the plans that the government are making if they feel it is not helping them. The author wants the government to make plans which are necessary to the society not to themselves.
In conclusion, all these sources were written after some school shooting taken place in America. The audience of some might differ. For example, the audience for source #1 are more rebelling and biased as to source #4 where the audience are not opiniated. The overall purpose of the sources was the same. The only difference was that some were persuasive, while others were informative, but all of them shared the same message. The stance of the sources were not the same. One wanted less gun control, while others wanted to focus on other facors than just gun control.
Work Cited
Goral, Tim. “A rational approach to ending gun violence: Don’t ‘harden’ schools. Make them softer, by improving social and emotional health.” District Administration, June 2018, p. 14+. Academic OneFile, http://link.galegroup.com.ccnyproxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/apps/doc/A541890875/AONE?u=cuny_ccny&sid=AONE&xid=43d15d50. Accessed 15 Sept. 2018.
“Oliver North, incoming NRA chief, blames school shootings on ‘culture of violence’.” Washingtonpost.com, 20 May 2018. Academic OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com.ccnyproxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/apps/doc/A539627776/AONE?u=cuny_ccny&sid=AONE&xid=56ca2891. Accessed 23 Sept. 2018.
Klein, Alyson. “Emotion Meets Policy at School-Safety Panel’s Listening Session.” Education Week, 13 June 2018, p. 14. Academic OneFile,
http://link.galegroup.com.ccnyproxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/apps/doc/A544257763/AONE?u=cuny_ccny&sid=AONE&xid=72dcc245. Accessed 22 Sept. 2018.
https://www.vox.com/2018/8/23/17773554/betsy-devos-guns-schools-arming-teachers
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