False Assumptions/Claims

Over the course of this article, Ian makes amny false asumptions and claims that may hinder his ability to be credible. When writing an essay or something that is supposed to convince people to think a certain way, or move people to action, one must make claims that are believable. "Now, with renewed support from our Republican-held Texas legislature, this band of fiercely partisan right-wingers will once again, quite literally, write history with their huge buying power to pressure publishers into offering books that satiate their appetite for propoganda, and dutifully shield our little boys and girls from anti-Christian, Communist theories such as evolution." In this sentence, Greenleigh makes the Republicans that run Congress in the state of Texas seem like they are all extreme right-wingers who want nothing more than to influence the young children of Texas into believing the same as they do. This claim is amde really by his word choice in the quote above. But then Greenleigh goes on to say that these elected officials are actually "brainwashing" children through these textbooks.

Another faulty claim that Greenleigh makes is that teachers are all biased in the state of Texas. Here he tries to bring a past experience into the paper to add credibility, hoping that the audience can realate to having a biased teacher in the past. "Students should be able to consider all sides of an issue", when dealing with controversial issues that the general adult public struggle with from day to day. Greenleigh could have used better word choice maybe to re-word this paragraph to not make it seem that all teachers embrace their political views in their lesson plans. This may work for the given audience who from what one can observe, is bitter toward right sided politics. So the language against it in his arguments helps draw the audience in more.

Towards the end of the paper Greenleigh makes more false assumptions. To the objective reader, these charges would be discarded in the readers mind. But, with the given audience these biases may not be seen fully. Greenleigh begins talking about the SBoE and makes correlations between them and Joe McCarthy, the man who was responsible for the red scare in the 1950's. This can bring down the SBoE to his level by relating the two on commonground. He then assumes because of this, f the SBoE, we should not condone "Rosa Parks, or Texas legends such as Steven F. Austin" because they might lead to "civil disorder, social strife, or disregard the law." More radical claims include separating water fountains at the University of Texas, and that the history books they condone make our young Americans into "submissive drones". Overall, all of his claims to the average person may seem farfettched, but to the suggested audience, a liberal student body who probly resent the high school system (since most of the UT population is from Texas) these claims and assumptions may not be too far off in their minds. Also, another thing to look at is that the students reading this probly won't question his credibility since most of them agree with him. The readers who will question it will be the ones who oppose his views in this essay.