Letters to the Editor

PB1A

Letters to the Editor

Part1

Links：

Here is David C. Leach letter to the editor that she published in the DP.

Here is an example:Let's get physical

Here is Sally Engelhart letter to the editor that she published in the DP.

Part2

Genre conventions:

Date, author name, title, picture,formal language, polite,personal opinion,

reasons, questions, advantage for credit physical education classes, actual conditions.

Part3

Exigence:

What prompted the writer’s need to communicate in this particular text?

Penn college offer credit physical education classes.

What’s the urgency behind the need to enact this genre? Why this, why now?

Student become lazy and they got illness easily. They kill for a weekly hour set aside for playing games with friends. Many of them want gym class back.

What event/moment sparked the creation of this text?

Over recent years, a bunch of universities have been fizzling out or eliminating physical education from their curricula. Today, Penn is among the majority of colleges that don’t offer physical education courses.

Writer:

Who is the writer? What do we know about them?  What’s their name?

Are they affiliated with a particular organization/company?  What’s their role/position?

DAVID C. LEACH

DAVID C. LEACH is the senior associate director of athletics for Campus Recreation and Wellness in the Division of Recreation and Intercollegiate Athletics. His email address is dleac@upenn.edu.

Sally Engelhart

Sally Engelhart is a College junior from Toronto. Her e-mail address is engelhart@theDP.com. Scientifically Blonde appears every other Thursday.

Primary/Intended Audience: Who is the intended/primary audience for this genre?  Is it addressed to a particular person?  If so, what’s their name, what organization/company are they affiliated with, and what’s their position/role?  Is it a group?  If so, what’s their organizational mission and/or identity?

The editor. No

Secondary/Peripheral Audience:  What additional peripheral/secondary audiences might play a role in how we can understand this genre?  Might other people be interested in the message that’s being communicated?  Could the writer have additional people in mind beyond the specific person(s) that they’ve contacted?  Who else could be “at stake” regarding the ideas embedded within this text?

Penn campus students, their friends and families

Penn government (federal, state, local)

The daily Pennsylvania readers

Anybody who is invested in this controversial issue

Writer’s Purpose/Goal:

What’s the writer’s goal?  

To show the importance of physical education.

Author think physical education should be mandatory like other college requirements.

To change others idea who wholeheartedly support Penn’s decision to leave physical health and education out of the curriculum.

To illustrate many obvious benefits of increasing physical activity and education. Such as lose weight and being healthy.

What are they trying to achieve?  What outcome(s) do they hope that this piece of communication achieves?

They want someone who want to take physical education courses can take it.

Context/Background Info: What additional information is necessary to make the most sense of this rhetorical situation?

The history of American education：In the 1900s, virtually all U.S. colleges had a physical education requirement. In the 1942 April Fool’s Day issue of the DP, a satirical notice read, “President announced the end of required Physical Education and urged undergraduates to sit indoors all day.” In one decade, satire became reality.

Part 4.

What are people writing about?  What are the different arguments that people make?  How are they trying to “win” people over?  

Three article all write about why physical education are important. And gives some reasons such as: Students who regularly work out are often more focused, less stressed, and have sharper memories. However, there only one article write about the reasons why physical health education out of the curriculum. It shows many evidence about what happen if students do not have physical health class.