Statement of Goals and Choices


                My intended audience is middle aged teachers and parents that believe that their children and students are being corrupted by this new age technology. I composed my argument knowing that this is a real issue that many parents and teachers deal with on a daily basis. I used research that I thought would be compelling to that audience. I knew that writing this as a 20-year-old would automatically make people think that I was advocating for cell-phones and their many pros. While I do believe that there are many pros, I also am able to recognize that there is an issue. To address this, I talk about my own experiences that explain that I do see the issue.
                 When I first started this project I was going in a different direction. I was going to discuss the generational difference and how that plays into the idea that people of older generations think technology is bad. I found this difficult because I realized that the statistics were hard to counter. There is clear evidence that cell-phones have created an addiction but it was hard to argue that older generations hate all technology. Most likely because it is not true. While I still am able to get my point across that older generations believe that technology should just be taken away, I could not make the argument that older generations hate all technology.
                 I drew the most form our discussion in class, of using personal experiences to make an argument. Being of the generation that has been accused the most of being addicted to technology, this was not difficult. What was difficult was being able to not just tell a story but make an argument at the same time. The piece that was the most helpful was Nikole Hannah-Jones’, “Choosing a School in a Segregated City.” This piece is able to argue sending your child to a public school, even if it is not the best academically because it will be more useful for your student to be exposed to an array of cultures, than to be the best at test taking. While the author makes this argument, she uses her own experience of picking a school for her daughter to attend. I tried to have a similar mix of storytelling, statistics and argument making as Nikole Hannah-Jones did.

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