Natalie Munroe's blog posts in which she bashed her students were almost as contrversial as her refusal to apologize for the rude comments and continual defense of herself, despite the fact that she hurt her students. The argument of "An Open Letter to Natalie Munroe" is, at its core, that Natalie Munroe was wrong in her original blog posts, her defense of her rude comments, and refusal to apologize because she has forgotten her responsibilities to her students and their parents as a teacher. Lehmann begins his open letter to Ms. Munroe by stating that the teachers "have a moral obligation to work to see the best in them", them referring to students. Lehmann goes onto say that Munroe failed this obligation by being cruel to her students.Munroe, in Lehmann's eyes, attempts to justify her cruelty to her students rather than swallowing her pride, admitting her grave error, and apologizing to her students. "Whatever frustration, grief, anger you may have over the behavior of your students... you gave up the moral high ground to speak with authority about that when you wrote publicly in a manner that was profoundly disrespectfulddrrd of and demeaning to those who are in your care" (Lehmann). Finally, the argument is summed up with the author's return to the idea that being a teacher is an incredibly hard job and that very few people, including Munroe, can successfully do it because they lack the patience, open mind, and drive to better their students that teaching requires.
The reason Lehmann's argument is successful in swaying the reader's opinion is because it accurately appeals to logos, ethos, and pathos via expertly chosen diction and syntax. Beginning with diction, firstly, the entire article focuses on Munroe being "cruel" to her students. Cruel has an extremely negative, evil, horrible connotation for most people. If Lehmann had chose a word such as "bad" or "harsh", it would not create the same emotional response in the reader and appeals to pathos. Secondly, Lehmann uses specific phrases that are designed to make a reader pity the students in this event rather than Munroe. He says, "You see... you don't teach English. You teach kids. Flawed, messed-up, never perfect, wonderful, amazing, kids" (Lehmann). The author's elaboration and positive word choices cause the reader to have an emotional response, both pitying the students and becoming angry at anyone who would dare to insult them or hurt them. Regarding ethos, Lehmann begins his open letter by stating that he's speaking out as a teacher, principal, and a parent (also dipping into pathos as well). Because of this statement, the reader can comfortably assume that Lehmann likes children and does not ever wish to see them be harmed, a common ethic. Throughout his argument, this becomes evident. Not only is it ethical that adults should not insult and be cruel to teens, it's also a fairly logical statement, appealing to logos. Lehmann's call for an apology does not seem too far fetched considering the things Munroe said about her students and how she, according to the author, as violated the moral, ethical agreement between student, parent, and teacher.
Moving on to Lehmann's syntax, all but the very last paragraph of his open letter are relatively short. Some of the paragraphs are only one or two sentences, which puts much greater emphasis on these points. Also, Lehmann moves from writing in sentences and paragraphs to indenting and using a numbered list to make three, key, specific requests from Ms. Munroe. These three things stick onto because of the way they are constructed and allow for the great, necessary emphasis on these words. As previously stated, the last paragraph is rather long compared to the others. This is because it sums up Lehmann's entire argument and sticks out, just like the numbered list, as something important and crucial to the argument.
Question: How would syntax be applied in a formal paper (say, like something for this class)?
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