RA - Elementary Problems with Technology

"Now predominant in high schools, cell phones are creeping into elementary and middle schools. MobileYouth, tracker of technology issues, estimates 200,000 U.S. children aged 5 to 9 carry cell phones, and in 2006 that number will nearly double. Also, over 7 million aged 10 to 14 have cell phones, a number hitting 11 million in the next two years. Knowing this, cell phone companies market more aggressively to youngsters, offering decorative phones that download Internet music."

- Communicator, March 2005
National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP)

This is a pretty short paragraph to be analyzing, but it was actually the longest paragraph in the article that I found regarding Technology and Communication. The WATCO of the entire article is WATCO elementary school students having cell phones on the quality of their educational environment? The enthymeme claims that students having cell phones decreases the quality of their educational environment because elementary school cell phone usage disrupts class and facilitates inappropriate behavior. The audience is elementary school educators, and the implicit assumption is that anything that disrupts class and facilitates inappropriate behavior decreases the quality of students' educational environment.

*Whew*

The strongest appeal in this short paragraph-ette is to logos (with all the statistics littering the sentences), but my favorite appeal is to pathos. I love the author's choice of the verbs "creeping," "hitting," and the adverb "aggressively" when referring to cell phones; they communicate the stance of the author much more effectively than actually stating the stance.

In terms of style, there are not that many adjectives used in this paragraph - which is great! In fact, there is a single adjective here (decorative) as well as a single adverb (aggressively), and represent appropriate usage of modifiers. The most important part of the paragraph - the methods being used to ensnare more children into the questionable life of cell phone usage - is kept until the end. Furthermore, there is only ONE usage of the "to be" verb in the entire paragraph, a commendable achievement indeed.

Well done, anonymous author of a short paragraph.