Alexander+Kravat

In Dennis Baron's blog, "The Noun Game-a simple grammar lesson leads to a clash of civilizations", the main problem is how different countries and languages interpret specific parts of speech, such as nouns. Dennis Baron then takes this concept a step further and discusses how nouns especially are grouped into three specific categories here in the United State, but could be something different elsewhere in the world. Because nouns have these categories, it limits the imagination of children when ultimately, it shouldn't. His main argument is that nouns can be placed into three specific categories: person, place, or thing. There are myraid amounts of different nouns out there, that some can't fit into these categories. The example Baron uses is the direction "East". Is east a place? Is east an idea? It's a reader's discretion to determine which category they would put it in. But, Baron says, no matter what it is, it is still a noun and that's what should matter to teachers and students.

Dennis Baron uses an ancedote to explain the dilemma of having teachers expect students to place every single noun into these three categories. The ancedote is based on a student from Asia that has four categories in his language: person, place, thing, and animal. This student comes to America and is playing the noun game. This game is where a student is given a noun and it has to be placed into a specific category. But here in the United States, there are only three categories as explained before. Of course, this student is given the word horse. Now back in Asia, horse would be placed into the animal category, but in his new home, he had new idea. He ended up placing the word in the wrong hat and getting a C on the assignment because of it. The last way he explained his view of nouns is by using a short example of his personal life. He and his family moved to France and his girl went to school there. She ended up experiencing a similar occurrence such as the student from Asia.

I believe Dennis Baron uses all three appeals: logos, pathos, and ethos, to some degree of effectiveness to explain his view. Dennis Baron relies mostly on pathos though. The ancedote he uses about the little boy from Asia, how he had no idea what to do, and ended up getting a bad grade. Because of this, a sense of sadness and guilt for the boy crept into me. I wanted to jump into the story and help the boy out. I was feeling his pain and indecisiveness. He used very descriptive words to make it almost feel as if I was in the story there. He also used ethos very well too. Telling the story about his daughter and how this same situation occured in his life really made me believe that he knew what he was talking about. He used both of these stories at the beginning on the blog, attracting my attention and making me want to read more.

Seeing this website is located on his own section on the illinois.edu website, I would think his audience would be teachers or students that are in high school eduation or above. Dennis's arguments are very thoroughly thought out, but his one weakness would have to be the lack of logos. He doesn't do as good of a job appealing to his audience's logic than his audience's emotions and ethics. His arguments would be more descriptive and informative using the logos. Looking past this minor mistake, Dennis Baron does a fantastic job using the ethos and pathos. Using the ancedotes as an argument really catches the attention of his audience and brings them into the reading. The website also using the effect of pictures to describe what is happening at that moment. These pictures allow people like myself a visual aid to help explain what is going on in the reading at that time. Because of Baron's use of persuasive arguments, I was able to trust this man and feel a sense of reliability.


 * // Alex - A very nice summary and analysis. A couple quotes to support your ideas when you analyze are the norm, so keep that in mind in the future. Overall a very good first college "paper"! CHECK PLUS ~Prof. Wendt //**