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Critical Rhetorical Essay on Cathy N. Davidson’s “Collaborative Learning for the

Digital Age”

Rhetoric language and impression effect to a targeted audience are inseparable

elements. Using rhetorical persuasion is not only an effective way to make an argument but

also used to strengthen the value of that argument. This is the same strategy employed in

Cathy N. Davidson’s “Collaborative Learning for the Digital Age.” In her arguments, Cathy

uses rhetorical persuasion aspects like Pathos, Logos, and Ethos, to demonstrate to the

readers an integral value of collaborative learning in society. She explains collaborative

learning as a new form of learning that comes with many opportunities to the society,

including imparting new learning and problem-solving techniques among community

members (Davidson and Goldberg 24). Having established her credibility as a distinguished

professor for interdisciplinary studies at Duke University, Cathy employs logistics obtained

from her advanced interaction with relevant studies from distinguished scholars to prove how

efficient collaborative learning can be in advancing changes and reshaping learning

experiences in various societies worldwide. Cathy achieves this by sharing touching stories

that relate to the emotion of the audience.

Cathy employs the use of rhetorical appeals of logos, ethos, and pathos to make her

arguments. First, she approaches the concept of collaborative learning from an ethical

perspective to convince her audience that she understands the value of what she is speaking

about and integrates an evidence-based approach to back her arguments. This is the rhetorical

appeal of ethos. She demonstrates that she is experienced in matters of collaborative learning
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and understands how society has benefited from collaborative learning technologies. While

the benefits of collaborative learning may be evident to members of a community, Cathy

advances her arguments by going deeper to demonstrate that collaborative learning maybe

not only sound in the development of skills in oral communication and critical thinking but

also imperative in helping people to regain control, perfect their interaction skills and

enhance the efficiency of group works, which Cathy does not consider as only indispensable

elements, but also fundamental in the development of diversity concepts and integration of

digital learning tools in efforts towards addressing the learning challenges that still affect

various societies across the globe. Using ethos in Cathy Davidson's “Collaborative Learning

for the Digital Age” was integral in establishing a common ground with the audience by

refutation. While disagreeing with the societal understanding and position on integrating and

implementing collaborative learning in the digital age, she first demonstrates respect to her

audience. She then convinces the audience of why she feels collaborative learning is

inevitable in the digital age. This is incredible!!

Pathos defines the logical appeal that makes the audience think the author is

passionate about addressing an issue affecting them. Precisely, it is an emotional appeal used

to persuade and convince the audience. In her arguments, Cathy Davidson describes

collaborative learning as participatory learning. This is a passionate term that demonstrates

how members of the society must take the burden of one another passionately and help one

another develop their learning and critical thinking skills. While these ideas may appear to

resonate with most members of various societies worldwide, they passionately demonstrate

how diverse communities can use collaborative learning technologies and skills to their

advantage (Davidson and Goldberg 33). Usually, different audiences have their emotions and

varying intellect levels on various topics and would only want arguments that can

constructively engage them emotionally, and Cathy achieves that prudently.

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Lastly, Cathy Davidson uses logos, which is the logical appeal in convincing the

audience on the indispensable value of collaborative learning in the digital age.

Understanding how debatable the issue of collaborative learning technologies has been, she

approaches the subject tactfully through deductive and inductive reasoning. Cathy presents an

evidence-based approach to convince the audience how collaborative learning is the only

hope for developing adequate critical and teaching skills in an age characterized by intense

dynamism in technological learning. Cathy arrives at most of her conclusions by referencing

studies done by various scholars on collaborative learning to advance her arguments. For

example, in significant proportions of her arguments, Cathy focuses on demonstrating how

most instructional and learning institutions only promote the use of direct instructional

models in their instructional strategies at the expense of focusing on the interactive aspect of

learning. This is a severe issue of the advancement of learning.

Cathy tries to advance her reasoning and advocacy for the implementation of

collaborative digital technologies in learning by demonstrating to institutions the need to

accomplish learning by integrating different learning models to ensure that they develop

people and experts who are diversified in other aspects in their fields (Davidson and

Goldberg 18). Cathy further illustrates that K-12 teaching should be quite diversified and

should ensure that digital technologies of various forms are integrated into learning and

instructional practice as a strategy to ensure that that the learning needs of all learners are

achieved by leaving no learner behind based on their levels of cognitive skills and abilities.
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Works Cited

Davidson, Cathy N., and David T. Goldberg. "The Future of Learning Institutions in a

Digital Age." 2009.