Reasoning and Persuasion

As a member of the discourse community of writers, I am constantly composing numerous papers and essays every week. I create the majority of these written assignments for academic purposes for my three English courses. I also love to write as a hobby because it makes me feel calm to be able to physically get the thoughts in my head down on paper. However, since I am constantly writing, the concepts of reasoning and persuasion are no strangers to me! I think that these two writing strategies are very important to students. The persuasion essay is vital because it allows a writer to create a context in which it is safe to present his or her ideas to the audience in a straightforward manner. Chapter 15 of Laib's novel, "Rhetoric and Style" describes the helpful methods one can use to be more persuasive when writing. Certain tips are, "To make your style more persuasive, you might use the following strategies: rely on examples and use narratives"(pg 301). These two strategies are the most familiar to me, and I will utilize them both in the upcoming research paper I am creating for English 207. In this paper I plan to persuade my audience that the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law is not working. I plan to argue that it is doing more harm in our public schools than good, and my aim is to prove this by citing examples from journal entries, newspapers, and novels. I also plan to use narratives (written accounts) of teachers who oppose the the law and relate these personal stories involving NCLB to my essay.
The text also states, "Reasoning attempts to represent the author's point of view-and to convince the audience to agree with it"(pg 307). I agree with this quote, because as a scholar and future teacher, I have used my reasoning skills multiple times. These skills are vital in the professional world if one wants his/her perspective on an issue to be taken seriously. Since I will want my audience to pay attention to my understanding of the negative impacts of NCLB, I will use reasoning skills by, as the text states, taking my subject (NCLB) apart and showing the pieces to the audience. I will attempt to show my audience that the Law has not succeeded in joining the youth of the nation in a bond of education. NCLB is simply making the realm of education a demanding profession and burdening school administrators with the pressures of standardized testing.
In the larger scheme of my essay, persuasion and reasoning tactics will be the main facets to my paper that will assist my audience to see the NCLB from my point of view. These two methods are truly effective in the world of essays and I will use them for the rest of my career.