Use of rhetoric in "Making the Grade"

Jacob Kowalczyk

Kurt Wiesenfield, in his article “Making the Grade”, employs several rhetorical devices to ensure or at least increase the chances that his main points and purpose in writing are clear to his audience. First and foremost, he qualifies himself as an expert, citing his ten years of experience in teaching college-level physics. This enables the reader to at least give some validity to his experiences as significant and relevant to the topic of student behavior. It seems a simple concept: one has to trust another, at least superficially, before one can take another’s word as valid. Wiesenberg understands this idea and uses it to his advantage rhetorically. So, once his expertise is validated to the reader, his next strategy is simply using cold, hard evidence to make his point to the reader.

Wiesenberg employs logos, or the use of factual evidence as a rhetorical device to persuade his audience. The first piece of factual evidence comes into play when he cites that ten percent of his class came to him to “wheedle” for a better grade. This creates a real meaning for the audience, who now know the proportion of his students who engage in “wheedling”, instead of Wiesenberg simply noting that several of his students “wheedle”. Later in the article, his use of logos comes into play again when he cites the numerous structures that have failed in his area alone due to engineering miscalculations. Wiesenberg frames these events as real-world consequences of “wheedling”. Aside from the simple rhetorical effect of Wiesenberg’s logic on his audience, a third rhetorical device comes into play with his discussion of failing structures: pathos.

The author’s citing of these structures failing and doing damage has a strong emotional impact on his audience. So, if Wiesenberg’s qualification as an expert and his use of factual evidence haven’t convinced his audience yet that “wheedling” has disastrous effects in the real world, the raw emotional response to the fact that buildings have fallen, destroying other structures and killing people could be the means by which an audience could be persuaded towards the understanding that wheedling has negative consequences.

In sum, Wiesenberg employs several rhetorical strategies pretty equally throughout his article. His qualifying himself as an expert in this matter, his use of factual evidence, and his emotional appeal to the audience are all devices he uses to persuade his audience towards his understanding.