Genre Analysis

Joshua Vallez
ENGL 1312
5/11/14
Introduction
The Washington Post published an article online named The Real 21
st
Century Problem
in Public Education in October of 2013. It states that the major issue with our poor public
education system is poverty. It belongs to the typological genre because it is a written text
published online, and it was written by Valerie Strauss. FiveFold productions published a short
video/documentary on YouTube titled Dream with Me: One Year in Americas Public
Schools, which shows the struggles of a school district in Los Angeles, which initially has one
of the lowest graduation rates in the country due to low funding and poverty.
Audience
The intended audiences of the author of the typological source represented in this paper
are students and older people, perhaps of middle age or older, who might read The Washington
Post on a regular basis. It targets older people because The Washington Post isnt a popular
newspaper among teens. Its internet presence allows it to become available to a wider audience
such as students who may come across an article of theirs while researching something. The
audience of the YouTube video that was chosen, however, is somewhat different. The YouTube
video is intended for a much broader audience. Dream with Me: One Year in Americas Public
Schools aims to reach out to people of all ages that care about the state of our education system.
It appeals to younger audiences with its video format, and it also appeals to older audiences with
their facts and statistics, as well as their professional diction.
Purpose
The purpose of the typological source I selected is to inform its readers as to the cause of
our problems with public education. They give the reader this information in hopes of persuading
him/her to agree with their opinion on what our biggest obstacle is in the public school system.
They aim to encourage people to make education reform that will solve or reduce the problems
stated throughout the article. The iconography source had a similar purpose, to persuade people
to take action and change the public education system for the better. Both sources are discussing
public education and its flaws, as well as what we can do to improve this system, but they go
about accomplishing this goal in different ways.
Ethos
Ethos is fairly prominent in both sources. The Washington Posts article comes from a
respected and established newspaper. The YouTube video is also credible because it is a
documentary centered on one of the nations poorest school districts, with one of the lowest
graduation rates in the country. An argument could also be made against the documentarys
credibility, because if they claim to know exactly what the problem is with Americas public
education, why havent they been able to improve graduation rates in their own school district?
Both sources attempt to build credibility through using statistics or interviews with people who
have personal experience with teaching in our public education system and have seen what
improves test scores and graduation rates firsthand. It is through these interviews that the
documentary gains the majority of its credibility. The Washington Post has a strong presence of
ethos based off of its prestigious reputation, but both achieve a reasonable amount of credibility
on some level.
Pathos
Pathos is much stronger in the YouTube video than it is in The Washington Posts online
article. The documentary uses music, color, and sad stories from people who have personal
experience with the negative side of our education system. They use emotional interviews with
teachers who say half of their class or more will be high school dropouts. They talk about how
frustrated they are with the system but how they are ultimately powerless to do anything about it.
They also interview kids who were victims of bad teachers and unreasonably cruel school
policies that held children back instead of disciplining them. The pathos in The Washington
Posts article includes using words like devastating and the like to describe the state of the
education system. They attempt to appeal to peoples sense of sympathy for public schools by
using words that demonstrate and emphasize the poor state that our education system is currently
in.
Logos
Both sources use logos to convince people that they are correct by using facts. They also
use it to enhance their ethos. The Washington Post states that in 2011 over have of public
school students are poor in 17 states (V. Strauss, 2013). The YouTube documentary states that
out of 30 industrialized countries, the US currently ranks 25
th
in math and 21
st
in science (H.
Hebert, 2013). They both present their arguments reasonably and have facts to back up the
majority of their claims.
Structure/Delivery
The article from The Washington Post is designed to be straight forward and direct,
because the aforementioned audience wouldnt be interested in beating around the bush, so to
speak. The article starts by stating the problem with public education as it was previously known,
then mentions a study that states that the problems are in fact poverty levels. The YouTube video
is much more slowly paced, because it is easier for a video to keep someones attention. This
allows the video to fully flesh out ideas and take their time divulging all of their information
rather than throwing all of it out at once and overwhelming the audience. The Washington Post
doesnt waste time with color or flamboyant visuals because they know that very few people just
happen to stumble upon an article by The Washington Post and read it in its entirety based solely
off of their stunning graphical prowess (sarcasm). The YouTube video, however, has to grab the
viewers attention and hold it throughout the video because YouTube is a much more open
source and anyone could come across this video whilst browsing YouTube.
Conclusion
I believe the YouTube video conveyed a stronger message. The viewer got to see first-
hand what it is like in one of the poorest (in performance, funding, and average income of
students) schools in the country, as opposed to simply reading about someones theory about the
situation, as was the case in the article by The Washington Post. The viewer can sympathize with
the children from the documentary as they talk about their experience with large classrooms and
their disappointment in the school system. It can contrast with the viewer if they had a much
better school experience and inspire them to take action.

References
Valerie Strauss (2013, October 26) The Real 21
st
Century Problem in Public education. The
Washington Post. 2/27/13. From http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-
sheet/wp/2013/10/26/the-real-21st-century-problem-in-public-education/
Henri Hebert (2013, Feb 11). Dream With Me: One Year in Americas Public Schools. Retrieved
from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8JnBsQ7sPM