TOW #3 - Article: President Reagan Challenger Explosion

On January 28^th 1986, the Challenger space shuttle was launched. 73 seconds into what would end up being it’s tenth and last mission the shuttle broke apart killing all seven crew members on board. Later that day, President Ronald Reagan made a televised speech to address the tragedy during what was supposed to be his State of Union Address.

            Reagan’s delivering the speech was to acknowledge the tragedy that occurred. He didn’t want to provide an explanation for the failure of the shuttle, mainly because the reason behind the explosion wasn’t found yet, but also because he knew it wouldn’t help the situation. The launch was, like Reagan’s speech, televised to the whole country. This meant that schoolchildren watched seven people get killed in an explosion. In his speech Reagan wanted to point out to the country that yes a terrible thing occurred today, but this terrible thing wasn’t going to stop us from continuing our journey towards the future. He wanted his speech to give the country hope that together they could overcome this tragedy and become a stronger nation because of it.

            Reagan achieved his purpose by continuously mentioning throughout the speech that the country’s research and discovery of space wasn’t ending due to the failure of the shuttle. He kept saying in his speech how as a country we were just beginning to learn about the universe and that this shuttle launch was helping us get one step closer to entering parts that we haven’t seen yet.

            The primary audience of the speech was the whole country. This audience is shown whenever Reagan uses ‘we’ to include every single person in the country to not single any one group of people out. Then Reagan’s secondary audience is the schoolchildren who had to witness the explosion and death of seven people. In the speech Reagan dedicated a whole mini paragraph to the schoolchildren of America. He does this because usually children have to be explained things differently than adults, mainly because they have a hard time comprehending ideas of death and tragedy.

TOW #2 - Visual Text: 'This Sounds Familiar' by Rob Rogers

 

Rogers, Rob. "This Sounds Familiar" Rob Rogers. N.p., 10 June 2012. Web. 18 Sept. 2016.

            Rob Rogers’ political cartoon on gun control tries to show the parallel between the 1950s when people were claiming smoking was healthy and today when people are trying to say that having easy access to guns isn’t one of the reasons behind many mass shootings. Rob Rogers is an award-winning editorial cartoonist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, his works have received multiple awards for their satirical look at current world issues. In 1999, Rob was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

            Currently with scientific and medical research we now know that smoking does cause many lung diseases and is in fact not a very healthy habit for people to do. We are also realizing today that one of the big reasons behind mass shootings is how easy it is for people to access guns. Rogers’ purpose of creating this cartoon is to point out to people that the same situation with smoking is going to happen again with gun law controls. He’s trying to show people that since we’re now kicking ourselves for not realizing sooner that tobacco is harmful the same thing is going to happen in the future with gun violence. Rogers achieves his purpose by making what both of the men say very similar. By having the men say basically the same thing, he’s portraying how history is going to repeat itself and that we as a country will be regretting not making stricter gun laws sooner.

            Rogers’ primary audience is everyone in the country. He wants everyone to notice the similarities between the two events so we can band together as country to make a change. Then his secondary audience is people who don’t think that gun control is a real issue. They’re his other audience because he knows that in order to spark any changing in gun control laws he has to make people like this change their perspective on how they see gun violence.

TOW #1 – Article: ‘The Fight Over the Next Dakota Access Pipeline Could Be the Next Keystone’ by Justin Worland

In 2014, it was announced that a 1,200-mile oil pipeline would be built, it would cross through North Dakota and end up at the Gulf Coast. Indigenous people, climate activists, and landowners have been protesting at the build site in North Dakota since earlier this week.

 The protests started because the pipeline proposed a threat to the Standing Rock Sioux, a tribe located less than a mile away from the pipeline. The pipeline would be crossing a dammed section of the Missouri River that is a main source of water for the tribe, the leaders worry that effects of an accident or spill from the pipeline could ruin their water supply. As the protest began to gather more media coverage more indigenous people started to travel across the country to show their support against the project. They wanted to use the Dakota Access Pipeline to bring attention to other types of infrastructure projects that wreak havoc in their communities. Then other protesters are voicing their concerns about how the pipeline will contribute more damage to climate change. Justin Worland is a writer for Time Magazine, he focuses on covering stories that involve energy conservation and environment issues.

Worland’s purpose in writing this article is to inform people on the local issue. He aims to give the protesters’ a voice that they can use to share their issues with the project. He achieves his purpose by thoroughly explaining to the reader the protesters’ motivation behind protesting the pipeline. The main ‘narrator’ of the article is the protesters. By making them the main narrator he doesn’t allow any of his own personal opinions on the pipeline come into his retelling of the issue. This makes the article seem like it is purely the protesters’ point of view.

The intended audience for this article is people who are in the age range of people in high school and above. The audience is shown through Worland’s diction. Throughout the article Worland describes some of the protesters as ‘indigenous’, this is a word that generally is not learned till people enter high school and start to learn the more gruesome details about American history.

By effectively giving the protesters a chance to share their concerns about the pipeline Worland completes his purpose.