School House Books
Personal Essay Classroom of English Instruction
Editorial
from The Iowa City Press-CitizenImagine for a minute that tomorrow, your boss tells you that for the next twelve months, you're going to earn only two-thirds of your salary. You can't quit your job.
What would you do? Quick.
The mortgage payment is already a week overdue. The kids need boots, and it's snowing. Quick.
The last two checks you wrote bounced, and the bank wouldn't pay them. The pediatrician's bill is overdue. The corner grocery store won't let you put anything on your charge account. Quick.
Your spouse is angry; you're not holding up your end of the deal. What are you going to do. Quick.
Your father and grandfather have done the same job as you're doing now. They went through the Depression. They lived on pork and potatoes, and they made it. You are the third generation. You're blowing it. Think fast. You don't have much time. Weeks, maybe months.
The pressure builds, the stress is stronger. You keep going to work, hanging on. It doesn't matter. Nothing you do matters. You are powerless.
This is the kind of thing Dale Burr probably felt. And it is the kind of thing many other Iowa farmers feel every day.
There are accounts of bank transactions and economic explanations and other hypotheses as the murder and suicide story unravels. But that's not what it's really about. It's about people--alone, desperate and powerless with nowhere to turn.
Once the Burr's were one of the wealthier families in the county. They were well-thought-of people. Salt of the earth. Churchgoers. A family of farmers carrying on a tradition. That was a year or two ago. That's how fast things crumble.
Target prices, price supports, ceilings, sealing crops. The terminology doesn't matter. It's welfare. Farmers know it. And farmers are proud people. Nobody really wants to live that way. But for now, there is no choice.
Many Iowa farmers already have deep pay cuts. They've scaled down operations. They've swallowed their pride--gone to stress clinics, sought therapy, stood in line at the market with food stamps in their pockets.
Some of it was bad judgment. Some of it was bad luck. The mid-1970's was a boom time for Iowa agriculture, but everyone else caught on. Physician's fees rose, hospital costs rose, the cost of cars and homes and tractors and loans and mortgages and a college education rose. Then the bottom fell out--for farmers. Now things are so out of kilter that people who once were pillars of the communities are falling into poverty, depression and disrepute.
This is the farm crisis--the people who are alive and hanging on, and those who have died at the hands of anger, frustration, humiliation. And they are here.
Politicians tell us it is only a matter of balancing the books, that if we can reduce the deficit, deflate the value of the dollar, increase exports and give the free market reignóthen everything will be all right.
But if there's only thing that is clear from Monday's tragic series of murders and suicide, it is that the farm crisis is not numbers and deficits and bushels of corn. It is people and pride and tears and blood.
The time has come for the state and the country to reach out to farmers who are suffering--not because they are failed business men and women, but because they are human beings who are falling apart--fast.
Checklist for Evaluating the Argument of the Editorial
STEP 1: Check each item listed below which accurately describes the positive aspects of the essay being graded. This section describes the basic requirements for a well-written essay. (Grader one should check column one. Grader two should check column two):
Section One:
___-___1. The writer clearly identifies the stance taken in the editorial.
___-___2. The writer analyzes the logical appeals made.
___-___3. The writer analyzes the emotional appeals made.
___-___4. The writer analyzes how the author's manipulation of syntax, use of repetition, and other stylistic devices add to the effectiveness of the argument.
___-___5. The thesis and topic sentences show a clear understanding of how the persuasive devices in the passage are used to sway the reader.
___-___6. The writer supports the discussion of each persuasive device with strong evidence (a minimum of three embedded bits of quotes per paragraph).
___-___7. The diction and sentence structure of this essay communicates a clear message.
___-___8. The organization of this essay aids in communicating a clear message.
___-___9. The grammar aids in communicating a clear message.
STEP 2: Score the essay by adding one point for each item checked from the list. Put your score in the "Grader One Score" slot below. Grader two does the same. The final grade is determind by adding the two graders' scores and dividing by two:
RESULTS:
GRADER ONE SCORE: _____ + GRADER TWO SCORE _____ DIVIDED BY TWO = _____Note: This number must correspond to the score given by the teacher or it is wrong.
STEP 3: The checks in section one correspond with the checks in section two. If an item in section one is left blank, the reason may be explained in the corresponding check in section two. These describe some of the common errors seen for each requirement. If the check in
section two does not adequately describe why the corresponding number in section one was left blank, the grader should write an explanation in the blank next to that section two number.Section Two:
___-___1. The writer's summary of the editorial's stance is more simplistic than those of the better essays.
___-___2. The writer names the logical appeals but adds no more discussion.
___-___3. The writer names the emotional appeals but adds no more discussion.
___-___4. The writer simply catalogues some examples of the author's manipulation of syntax, use of repetition, and other stylistic devices without relating them to the authors' use of those devices to convince the reader.
___-___5. The connection between the evidence and the author's assertion is less clear than those of the top-scoring essays.
___-___6. Although adequate in number, the evidence in this essay is not as convincing as the top-scoring essay.
___-___7. A few lapses in diction or syntax may be present, but the message is clear.
___-___8. The organization of this essay is less appropriate than those of the top-scoring essays.
___-___9. The writer makes consistent errors in grammar and/or other basic elements of composition.
