TOW #24: "Four Seasons in Rome" (part 2)

                Serving as a snapshot of a family’s one year experience living in Italy, Four Seasons in Rome by Anthony Doerr is a truly beautiful tale of nonfiction. Doerr, the first person narrator of the story, slowly explains how he and his family get to know the city over time and fall in love with it. Rome is very famous for its beautify, and any tourist can tell you, although likely in a much less elegant way than Doerr describes it, that Rome is “a Metropolitan Museum of Art the size of Manhattan, no roof, no display cases, and half a million combustion engines rumbling in the hallways”. But Doerr goes beyond these well-crafted sentences that state in artistic ways things that are held by many as common knowledge about Rome. He takes the time to stop and fall in love with the little things, the kind of nuances not found in travel pamphlets. He observes, “A travel website says that there are 280 fountains in Rome, but it seems as if there are more:...Remove them and there is no present tense, no circulatory system, nor dreams to balance the waking hours. No Rome”, making beautiful and complex analogies that really help the reader discover the feel of the city that is almost as good as being there themselves. He says to “Look closely and the picturesque inevitably cracks apart and becomes more interesting”. While he is getting to know Rome, Doerr and his wife are also getting to know what parenting is like. Doerr learns that “Watching teething babies is like watching over a thermonuclear reactor--it is best done in shifts, by well-rested people”, but also realizes “Whoever says adults are better at paying attention than children is wrong: we're too busying filtering out the world, focusing on some task or another, paying no attention. Our kids are the ones discovering new contents all day long”. By observing his children, Doerr learns more about himself and humanity. From his use of incredibly artful language to his deep and honest themes, Doerr does an excellent job describing his four seasons in Rome. 

TOW #23: "A Second Language for Every High School Student"

                In an article posted on Stanford News, Cynthia Haven makes a unique argument for language programs in high school. After speaking to Stanford German Linguistics professor Russell Berman, Haven summed up the unconventional argument in “A second language for every high school student”. The idea presented is that students should strive to be bilingual by the time they graduate high school. In order to achieve this, school districts would have to start languages when the students are in elementary school (which is when languages can be picked up more easily anyway), and then continue taking the same language as they grow older with increasing rigor. Although many may see increased focus in foreign language as unwarranted and unnecessary, Berman and Haven justify their conclusions by pointing out how important learning a language is. The article points out that “to worry about globalization without supporting a big increase in language learning is laughable”, and in order for America to be competitive and respected internationally, their citizens must be able to demonstrate that they can speak multiple languages. The article also references European education to refute the counterargument that becoming fluent in another language is too hard and useless. “Virtually all other industrialized countries require second or third language study in the school system”, and some Swedish schools are even looking into advancing programs that will have their students graduate fluent in four languages. If children in Europe can be proficient and even fluent in multiple other languages before they reach high school, it should be possible for American students to be fluent in one by the time they graduate high school. Personally, I think that this is a really good argument that makes a lot of sense in the modern world. Learning another language has made me appreciate a new foreign language and culture, and has also made me admire those who immigrate to America and must learn English quickly. Haven makes a truly well-informed argument, and educators would be wise to listen to the ideas presented in this piece. 

TOW #22: Searching for Immigration Reform

                For his article titled “Searching for Immigration Reform” published in The Virginian Pilot, Ray Tranchant should be given a medal. In one rather curt piece, this sharp-eyed reporter was able to communicate more real facts and solutions to the immigration problem than any presidential candidate has been able to in the past few months. Many Americans did not understand the immigration problem in its entirety, being led by their favorite candidate to see it in their way and ignore the complexity of the problem. The candidates themselves clearly are no better, since as Tranchant puts it, “it’s either all or nothing”. By calling politicians out on their perpetual use of an either/or logical fallacy, Tranchant is able to make  the very logical argument that America lawmakers, and the American people, should stop searching for extreme black and white answers and try to look for a middle road. His argument refreshingly analyses and accounts for both sides of the immigration controversy; seeing the benefits in having open borders as well as a necessity for more strictly closed borders. After looking at both sides, Tranchant provides specific examples to support his analysis of the situation. He says, “Both Clinton and Sanders want amnesty for whomever lands in the United States. Their push is to bring broken families back together, but they both fail to mention how they got separated in the first place. Does the father or mother get deported because of a felony, or does the U.S. government just randomly deport immigrants without considering family circumstances? Donald Trump and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz want the complete deportation of 12 million to 30 million people. That’s a little much, isn’t it?” , to point out the flaws in both sides. Not only is Tranchant right about the foolishness of the aforementioned candidates, but he can prove exactly why they are wrong. By being straightforward and honest, looking at both sides without discernable bias, and using very blunt, to-the-point language, Tranchant is able to very effectively argue a logical argument.