Analysis Blog #3

"Address to Congress, December 8, 1941"

In Roosevelts "Address to Congress" he uses mostly concrete language. He is very descriptive and factual on what happened. It is very clear and to the point. It's like he is describing step by step what happened. He says things like, "The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces." I also noticed that he uses the word "attack" a lot and makes it clear that the Japanese are now enemies. He uses words like "unprovoked" and "dastardly attack" to describe what the Japanese did. His language was very exagerated, and it was quite clear that he knew that his audience was on he same side as him and shared the same feelings and thoughts. 

"President's Address to the Nation, September 11, 2006"

In Bush's "Presidents Address to the Nation" he uses much more emotional language to connect with his audience. It is also a much more slanted speech. His speech is drags on and on (unlike Roosevelts) and it is quite clear that it is less factual and more emotion drived. He talks about specific people that 911 affected and talks about the horror and caios of the day. It allows the audience to feel the emotions that they felt that day 5 years ago. It helps them connect more with his speech and makes us, as Americans, feel closer becuase of this one shared tragic event. And Bush uses that to make his point of revenge very clear. He says things like, "triumph" and "powerful" to describe America. And then uses words like, "murders" and "enemies" to describe the terrorists. 

Overall, I felt like both speeches had the same motive, and used much of the same language to get their points across. However, they did have some very clear differences such as Bush's being much more slanted. 

Pre-Reading Blog #3

"True or False: Schools Fail Immigrants"

At first I searched for Richard Rothstein on Wikipedia, but I was unable to find anything for him. So I decided to "Google" him. I found out that Richard is a research associate of the Economic Policy Institute. However, He used to be the national columnist for The New York Times. While researching him I also realized that he has written many books and articles from 1990-2009. Some of the titles are: "Grading Education: Getting Accountability Right (Teachers College Press and EPI, 2008) and Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic and Educational Reform to Close the Black-White Achievement Gap (Teachers College Press 2004). He is also the author of The Way We Were? Myths and Realities of America's Student Achievement (1998). Other recent books include The Charter School Dust-Up: Examining the Evidence on Enrollment and Achievement (co-authored in 2005); and All Else Equal. Are Public and Private Schools Different? (co-authored in 2003)." It became very clear to me that much of Rothstein's writtings revolved around race, equality, class, and immigrants. I then search for his article "True or False: Schools Fail Immigrants." It was origionally published in the New York Times in 2001. Due to the title and his past books and articles I believe that this essay will be about issues with the school systems failing immigrants. It will probably be a very well written essay due to his experience as a writer and with this topic in particular.

"It's All About Him"

I flipped through our book and it says that David Von Drehle is currently working as a senior writer at the Washington Post. He has also been a national political writer, a magazine stff writer, a New York bureau chief, and assistant managing editor! I then continued to search for him on the Internet. I found that most of his books are about criminals or crime or violence. He seems to be a very dramatic writer which makes things interesting. With the title being "It's All About Him", I think it will be about the criminals and what they think and why they do what they do. Or maybe it will be just focused on one specific case. Im not quite sure. But I do think it will be a esay/interesting read fo the most part. I look forward to reading it.