Persuasion

Today in class one of our assignments was to try and convince Mr. Dye not to give us homework by persuading him in our journals. Our class was his only class who managed to do it! =) Anyway, we talked about the three methods of persuasion; logic, emotions, and ethics.

Logos (Logic)
Use practical reasoning and factual persuasive agruments. This is what our class did that other classes didn't do. I said that we already had homework from his class (our blogs and the Islam project) so we shouldn't have to have any more. It was logical reasoning.

Pathos (Emotions)
Several of the people tried to appeal to Mr. Dye's emotions to persuade him. They said that if he gave us homework, it would only make him more miserable because he would have papers to grade and waste his time. Homework would take away from his time with his family was another reason. We made him feel it was emotionally bad for him to give us himework.

Ethos (Ethics)
No one really used ethics to persuade Mr. Dye, but we read a speech by Pope Urban II, which initiated the start of the Crusades. He used a lot of ethical reasons that it was their duty to go and fight the Muslims. Ethics includes religion, right or wrong, politics, and things like that. One of Urban's main reasons was that Islam was a horrible religion and they were destroying Christianity. (Not really true, but...) So he appealed to the people's religious duties, or ethics, to get them to fight.

So anyway, I was glad we didn't have to have homework tonight. Just thought I would show off to everybody.