Oscar De Lara
English 1311
November/8/2011
800467069
When the community from West Texas saw the rates of teenage pregnancy increase to 172 pregnant girls attending city’s public schools the community came to a conclusion that they needed change, so they decided to teach abstinence to middle schools in hope that the rates go down.
The author organizes the article by giving facts about the town’s pregnancy rates, then she simply writes down the opinions of important people to support her statement for example “An example of logos in this article is ”72 pregnant girls were enrolled in the city’s public schools last year — many in the community realized something needed to change.” This is a logo because it has logic and reason, it’s backing up the statement using facts and numbers.
The author supports the thesis by introducing the area of west Texas saying its well known for oil and Republican presidents, not progressive social policy, she gives this fact so we can understand that its shocking that west Texas is willing to teach middle school students sex education and the importance of abstinence. Then she writes ““We’re getting calls from all over the state,” said Susan Torturer, the director of the University of Texas’ Prevention Research Center in Houston, who developed the curriculum being used in Midland. “It’s like we’re beyond this argument of abstinence, abstinence plus. Districts want something that works.”” To show that the districts are tired of not getting results when it comes to reducing the teenage pregnancy rates, they want to do something effective, they want to do something that works. And finally she ends the article by stating “This year the number of districts that use the curriculum has dropped to four from seven. Ms. Christie said that was because of budget cuts at the state level, not a changing philosophy or a loss of federal grants. Right now the organization has no plans to expand how its curriculum covers contraception, she said. But because the program is revised yearly based on feedback from districts and an evaluation from Baylor University, she said, that could change.” She ends the article in good terms, sort of a happy ending, she says that the students getting pregnant have dropped from seven to four.
The author tries to shock you and make you feel sorry for teenage girls who get pregnant and get sexual transmitted diseases. An example of pathos in this article is “These are girls as young as 13 that are pregnant; some of them are on their second pregnancies,” said Tracey Dees, the supervisor of health services in this district of just under 22,000 students, adding that many of the girls reported having sexually transmitted infections as well.” She uses disappointment tone, because she tries to make you feel disappointed when you read that girls at age thirteen are already having a second child, some of the girls even have a sexual transmitted disease.
The audience the author is trying to reach out are readers who don’t know the importance of having a sex education class in children’s schools. Most of them are probably parents who have kids who haven’t had a conversation with their children about safe sex and abstinence.
