Brief Analysis

Begin your response to Chapters 4-5 with a brief analysis of the closing exercise passage from each chapter (repeated below): Chapter 4; Passage 3 The government is spending far too much money on healthcare. The government could continue to fund healthcare for those who need it, but should not fund healthcare for people who do not deserve it. Cutting healthcare expenditures would lead to lower taxes and give citizens more spending power. With the current state of the American economy, anything that helps the citizen’s pocketbook would help America in the long run. Chapter 5; Passage 3 Online schooling is starting to become a popular alternative to the traditional classroom. Online schooling certainly has some benefits, but the downsides outweigh the advantages. For example, children who use online schooling miss out on the social interactions with other children that traditional schooling brings. These interactions are just as important to a child’s development as the lessons they receive in school. Students who don’t experience this contact with their peers run the risk of becoming antisocial and isolated. Children enrolled in online schooling also do not experience an interpersonal connection with multiple teachers. When a student has a variety of teachers, students gain from the different viewpoints they encounter while working with those teachers. Traditional schooling provides a variety of teachers who can inspire a love of learning much better than any program on a dim computer screen ever could.   After providing your brief analysis, respond to the chapters generally in about 250 words. Consider the following questions: Why are dictionary definitions of key terms and phrases used in an argument often not sufficiently helpful in determining their meaning? ARQ stresses that not all ambiguous terms or phrases are equally important. How do you determine which ones are the most important to identify? What is the relationship between ambiguity and definitional assumptions? Are there any terms used by the authors of ARQ that are importantly ambiguous? Explain. Why might it be useful for communicators to intentionally use words in an ambiguous fashion How do value and descriptive assumptions differ? If values are such important determinants of our beliefs about social controversies, if we know a person’s value priorities in a social controversy, will we necessarily know her conclusion? Explain. If we know her conclusion, will we necessarily know her value preferences? Explain. What are some questions that you can ask yourself to discover a communicator’s value assumptions? Do you believe most people are aware of what values they are assuming when they argue with you about a social issue? Why? Does it matter? From where do our most important value preferences arise? Are these good sources? Are some of our value preferences more resistant to change than others? Why? Why do so few experts (such as politicians, scientists, professors, and television pundits) make value priorities explicit? Should individuals expressing their opinions on a social controversy make their value priorities explicit? Why? How do value preferences about teaching differ among your teachers? You do not need to address all of these questions in your response, but you should aim to incorporate at least three of them.