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Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants By Marc Prensky

Decent Essays

Americans are known to reflect on East Asian education systems, then compare those systems to the education system here in the United States. When doing so, people tend to come to the same general conclusion: there are intensifying problems within the American education system. Marc Prensky, the author of “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants,” argues that the real issue with educating today’s youth is that our education system’s design does not accommodate today’s students since they are not the same as the students who molded our education system years and years ago. Today’s students are referred to as “digital natives” and their educators are referred to as “digital immigrants.” Delivered through Prensky’s syntax/diction and his overall audacious …show more content…

(This metaphor draws on the final rhetorical strategy: logos.) After separating today’s population into two groups, he labels them natives and immigrants, much like a divide we already see within society. The way we view immigrants today is also through two groups. “Good,” educated immigrants make up the first group, coming to the United States with the intention of furthering their education; and then “bad” immigrants who come to America to work and support their families, sending money back to them, make up the second group. The same people who categorize these immigrants go even further with their belief that immigrants should learn our customs and overall conform to us. The most popular demand being when it comes to language barriers, with a great deal of U.S. citizens arguing that immigrants should learn English if they want to live in the United States – just as Prensky is essentially saying about Digital Immigrants. Having already developed a repertoire of the excuses immigrants make for not learning this new digital language, Prensky is well aware of the opposition, to which he replies: “nonsense” (6). Using his tone to push Immigrants to “just do it” (6), it is clear that Prensky deems no excuse as valid. This means that immigrants should stop complaining about language barriers and just …show more content…

Prensky’s strategy of doing just that with his own bold, personal technique is what thrusts his argument. If he did not utilize syntax in the way that he did, his argument would have come off plain and uniform. And without his personal diction, the tone of the article would have been dry. Finally, Prensky’s strong metaphor added depth to his argument, while getting the reader to think “should we accommodate them, or should they accommodate us?” Using such a prominent metaphor raises the eyebrows of Digital Immigrants, but also gets them to listen. In sum, Prensky drew predominantly on pathos with his use of strategic shaming, but also touched on ethos when categorizing himself within the very group that he shamed, and finally using logos with his overall “us or them” metaphor. All in all, without his bold rhetorical strategy, the same message would have been said, but with a less convincing delivery style, and the argument would not have been as effective. Prensky’s additions are what pushed his argument right where it needed to be in order to give it the best chance of convincing the educators of older generations to accommodate the learning needs of the students of newer

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