English assigment - Assignment Example

Teacher’s Analysis of ‘Intellectual Diversity: The Trojan horse of a Dark Design’. The article ‘Intellectual Diversity: The Trojan horse of a Dark Design’, is a rhetoric piece of writing which is quite appealing logically. The article builds on from a historical event of passage of an ‘academic bill of rights’ by Horowitz; whereby intellectual diversity is to be maintained on all academic campuses. The main purpose of the article is to convince the audience that academic excellence should be apolitical and to enlighten the audience about how this bill is promoting political instead of academic enrichment on campuses in the name of intellectual diversity.

Throughout the essay, Fish (2004) makes use of various logical appeals (Logos). After introducing the audience to the bill under debate, he highlights its positive aspects, the points he agrees with. After this, he makes his position clear by enumerating and discussing the points of disagreement one by one and some very strong logical appeals have been made while doing so. Fish (2004) states logical arguments against the implementations of the bill one by one. First he highlights the dual meaning of ‘seeking the truth’, followed by the notion that seeking the truth is not even remotely related to modeling students into members of a pluralistic society or any other society for that matter.

Fish (2004) further points out, that although intellectual diversity may help in pursuit of truth, it is not an end in itself and should not be considered as a goal. Drawing on ethical appeal (ethos), towards the middle of the article, Fish states: ‘Teaching…yes, it is my job…but it is definitely not my job to produce citizens for a pluralistic society or for any other’. This statement brings the audiences’ attention to the ethical duties of a teacher clearly drawing a line between political and academic duties of an academia; which is ethically appealing.

Fish (2004) also points out a discrepancy among the words and actions taken by Horowitz. The article concludes with two examples of instances where the actions taken by Horowitz clearly oppose his words.Though the essay is mostly logical; however, in addition to logical appeals and a few ethical appeals; it also has emotional appeal. The very title of the article makes use of metaphoric language, intended to appeal to emotions. Usage of pathos is also apparent in the paragraph where the author is comparing the left and right end of the political spectrum in a satirical manner using pejorative language: ‘the right wins hands down…our colleges and universities are hotbeds of….

where …dollars are wasted…non sense is propagated …and religion is disrespected’. The target audience for this article is clearly the administration, management, faculty and students at all universities and colleges. The aim of this article is mainly to convince the audience that the real purpose of academic institutes is to teach, enable the students to explore and seek knowledge and truth rather than to promote some political agenda. Universities are meant to enrich students with knowledge and enable them to learn whatever there is to be learnt in this universe rather than to prepare them for a certain society.

The author is trying to convince the reader about the inappropriateness of encouraging hiring of more conservative teachers in the name of intellectual diversity. To sum up, the article draws mainly on rhetoric appeals and is quite convincing.Works Cited:Stanley, Fish. “Intellectual diversity: The Trojan horse of a dark design”. The Chronicle of Higher Education. 13th February, 2004. The Chronicle Review. 3rd August, 2011.  .