Rhetorical Analysis On School Shootings

In the book “Columbine” by Dave Cullen, several unknown truths are unfolded about the school shooting that shocked and confused many. Upon the beginning

Banks expanded her argument with a strong pathos by providing coherent details on the scenarios she mentioned of police shootings, which may lead to feelings of disturbance, trauma, and beyond belief for the ones reading. Perhaps, the extensive detail she gave when she was describing the scene at Minnesota, "a police officer held the pair at gunpoint and her 4-year-old daughter watched from the back seat." (Banks) The author portrays the officer as a selfish, cold-hearted man because, regardless of the situation, a child should never be traumatized with such disturbing image as is witnessing a gun pointed at their parents. Pathos was used a long way, as Banks intended the audience to agree that officers lack consideration of others.

The author’s tone in this quote is violent and bitter. Eric saying that he “hated almost everyone “, would support the reader’s thinking towards what kind of person Eric is, and what Eric is thinking. Eric’s use of language almost immediately gives the reader a hint of what he is capable of, not in the sense that he would literally “rip is head off and eat it” but in the sense that he is capable of doing bad things. Given the fact that people throughout the United States have already heard of the mass shooting in Columbine, the reader would promptly identify Eric as the killer and they would be right. The author’s purpose could be to keep the reader thinking: who is the killer? , but also help the reader predict how will the killer’s next plans

In his article, Gladwell repeatedly elaborates his claim on the aspects of previous school shootings, by providing quoted interviews. Thus supporting his credibility and creating trust between the author and audience. Gladwell appears to have acquired the knowledge of such events therefore, exemplifying to the reader his credibility, adding onto and advancing his argument. Along with his credibility, Malcolm Gladwell uses several logical statements such as “But, beyond those facts, the great puzzle is how little school shooters fit any kind of pattern.” (Page 3)

This article by Wondemaghen analyzes the theory of claims-making in school shootings and how this leads to the creation of ‘social’ problems. He asserts that these social problems often become the main focus of public attention, omitting objective subjects found in mass shootings. I will try to renovate this theory to show that this distortion of societal problems occurs as a result of social media’s platform of ‘death drive’, which frames only the violent details of school shootings, inevitably leading to arbitrary

The book “Rampage The Social Roots Of School Shootings” written by Newman et al, offers many different views and theories behind the issues of Rampage school shootings. In this paper I will give the reader an in depth overview and evaluation of the aforementioned book. Offering researched based reasons to why these school shootings actually happen. They explore the communities of Heath and Westside, the grounds of two horrific acts of rampage shootings by Michael Carnell, Andrew Golden and Mitchell Johnson. They explain various angles of there research such as identifying an issue, how signals given by children can be misinterpreted, the effects of social capital and how mental factors play a role in the acts of the shooters.

Adam looked up and saw the source of his agony sit down in a chair across the room. Adam grabbed the gun from his bag and took his aim, and pulled the trigger.¨ School violence is at an all time high. School shootings and other illegal activities are not uncommon in schools. Teachers currently are not armed, and can do very little to protect the students in their classroom. Teachers should be allowed to be armed during school hours, because they can protect their students, keep the school a safe place, and prevent other illegal activities.

Sandy Hook Elementary school, it was a cool brisk day with nothing going wrong. That all changed in two and a half minutes. Imagine a classroom full of twenty children from ages six to seven, and a few teachers that just got out of college all in one room. The police had been called, but they couldn 't arrive fast enough to save twenty-six lives. Now imagine being the police officer that came into that room and saw twenty-seven dead bodies laying on the ground with the shooters head blown off (Sandy Hook).

“Our Blind Spot about Guns” Rhetorical Analysis Essay American Journalist, Nicholas Kristof, in his essay, “Our Blind Spot about Guns”, addresses that if only guns were regulated and controlled like cars, there would be less fatalities. Kristof’s purpose is to emphasize how much safer cars are now than in the past, while guns do not have the same precautions. He constructs a compelling tone in order to convince the reader that the government should take more control on the safety of guns and who purchases them. Kristof builds credibility by successfully exerting emotional appeals on the audience, citing plausible statistics, and discussing what could possibly be done to prevent gun fatalities. Kristof begins his essay by discussing how automobile

The authors discuss steps such as point of entry on to school grounds to be limited and controlled, wireless panic alarms, strategically placed telephones, the relationship between school officials, local law-enforcement and first responders need to be recognized before any sort of disaster that occurs, and teachers and students need to become “situation ally aware” (Duplechain & Morris, 2014). The authors also mention that creating a school shooter’s profile can help create a safe school environment. However many of the school shooters that were studied came from model families, were honor roll students, enrolled in higher level classes and very few disciplinary records. The one warning sign they discussed that should always be taken serious is any time someone no matter who it is talks about killing, whether it be an animal or in fantasy.

Columbine, by Dave Cullen is a non-fiction book documenting the horrific massacre which took place in Littleton, Colorado on April 20, 1999. Not only does the writer give great detail about the shooting itself, he also gives and in depth look into the lives of the killers, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, and their victims. The focus of this book is for the author to attempt to bring to light what really happened and hopefully gain better understanding as to why it all took place. Cullen, a journalist, begins an extensive nine year research in order to achieve awareness of the happenings before, during and after this tragic event. Entries from the perpetrators personal journals, stories from the ones who witnessed the shootings first hand, countless interviews from the victim’s families, as well as multiple other pieces of information give the reader an extremely up close and personal surrounding Columbine.

Symbolic interactionism illuminates fundamental elements that attribute to school shootings. According to Jeanne Ballantine and Joan Spade in their book, Schools and Society, A Sociological Approach to Education, “Symbols are the concepts or ideas that we use to frame our interactions” (2015:19). Symbolically, a sense of self and hierarchical place is determined by social interactions (Ballantine and Spade 2015). Students find themselves determining how they see and feel about themselves by how their cohorts, parents, siblings, teachers, and others interact with them. Sadly, the young perpetrators of school shootings have derived their sense of self from their social experiences of isolation, bullied harassment, and low hierarchical status, producing skewed and biased self-perceptions.

Informative Speech Going Out with a Bang General Purpose: To inform. Specific purpose: To inform my audience about the causes of school shootings in America. Central Idea: The main causes for school shootings are easy access to guns, mental instability and trauma. INTRODUCTION I. (Attention Getter)

Emma Gonzalez starts off her speech with a moment of silence to support her 17 fellow students who had recently lost their lives in a tragic shooting at her school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, just 4 days later. As Gonzalez speaks to a gun control rally, she uses multiple aggressive points to support her claim that a solution to the problem of gun violence needs to be found to assure that there will never be another mass shooting. As Gonzalez stands on the stage in front of the crowd, she begins her speech with an emotional appeal to engage the readers and connect them to the issues she is speaking about. She states, “Every single person up here today, all these people should be home grieving. But instead we are up here standing together because if all our government and President can do is send thoughts and prayers, then it 's time for victims to be the change that we need to see.”

In this interview, Ramsey goes into specifics about his exceptionally difficult childhood stating that he shifted “back and forth between abusive foster homes after his mother lost herself to alcohol and his father passed away.” (Demer) In many school-shooting cases, the students committing the crime had several similarities in their backstories. These particular scarring events from their past had serious effects on their mental health.