Amanda Anh Thu Pham

ENC 3331 14Fall 0M02

Plan of Action Final
Professor Thomas Wright
November 18, 2014

My vision is to spread awareness and push for an initiative to fix the problem of Floridas

low high school graduation rate. I plan to sway others through the rhetorical approaches

of Aristotles appeals, Burkes identification and division and Guraks traits of online

communication through Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram social media platforms.

I chose social media because it is extensively utilized worldwide in todays generation.

For example, I gained access to the news of Paul Walker, Robin Williams and Diem

Browns death through one of my social media platforms first before doing my own

research through a qualified news source for confirmation. I also gain access to politics,

crime, local and world, and entertainment news through social media on a daily basis.

Facebook added an option to share posts, articles, videos and more that help spread

awareness of current events happening around us. We can also interconnect our

Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, simultaneously updating more than one platform in one

post. Information is then quickly shared, accessed and viewed.

Two weeks ago, Alex Lee, 16, lived the life of an average teenager, but, with the help of

the Internet, his life got a little more interesting. The morning of Nov. 2., his day started

off as it usually did, except he decided to turn off his cellphone due to low battery. His
father then dropped him off at Super Target where he worked as a cashier. According to

Nick Bilton, a writer for the New York Times, a teenage girl from Britain came across a

photo of him that was surreptitiously taken a week earlier on Tumblr, another social

media platform. She thought he was cute and re-posted the photo on her Twitter account

with a YOOOOOOOOOOO caption. Within minutes, the image went viral. Soon

enough, a meme and hashtag, #alexfromtarget, was trending for Lees photo. With Lees

phone off, he was oblivious to what was going on. When he finally turned his phone on

around 6:00 p.m., it was blown up with notifications from his friends informing him of

his Internet fame. At 6:09 p.m., he found his Twitter followers had increased by one

hundred times reaching over 100,000 followers. He tweeted, Am I famous now? This

message has since been retweeted more than 42,000 times and favorited by 86,000 users.

Lee now has about 730,000 followers on Twitter and 2.3 million followers on Instagram.

All of that happened in under twenty-four hours. This shows the power of the Internet

and social media goes hand-in-hand with theories of a new rhetoric through the Internet

supported by Laura J. Gurak and her traits of online communication. Information is

posted over and over again throughout many online discussions. According to Gurak, the

reason these texts were used repeatedly was not solely because of their content, but also

because they had the appropriate character and credibility to appeal to privacy advocates

and other participants across the Internet. Gurak uses this fact as a basis to support her

belief that ethos is the most important characteristic of online discourse: The dominance

of certain texts in the debates illustrates the power of ethos in cyberspace and complicates

the liberal model of online community by illustrating that truth does not always prevail,
especially in the high specialized spaces of the Internet. Therefore, if my plan is

executed tactfully it could potentially also intrigue and influence others, of course,

nowhere close to Lees case, but it could reach a fair amount of people.

They say, A picture is worth a thousand words. This was shown in Lees case because

his physical attributes were the cause of his popularity, but when it comes to our Floridas

diminishing high school graduation rate, the focus is on a number. An effective approach

would be to focus on statistics through graphs combined with other visual aids for readers

to see how serious the problem is in Florida when compared to other states. Then,

creating a captivating meme and catchy hashtag to help boost popularity will help as the

#ALSIceBucketChallenge hashtag helped the ALS Association raise over $100 million

for research on the lethal neurodegenerative disorder.

Further, I will conduct a survey on a random pool of high school dropouts between the

age of 25-30 covering their current state of employment, why they made the decision to

dropout, their current stand on that decision and where they envision themselves if they

were to have stayed in high school. Next, I would have to conduct research to see what

measures the state is currently taking to ensure high school students stay in school. I will

interview UCF faculty and staff members to see their perspective. Through Burkes

identification and division, I will identify with my audience by reporting the data I

accumulated through my survey. The non-high school graduates could be my audiences

family member or future children, so this is a relatable and important issue to raise
awareness for. With the statistics and survey, utilizing both Aristotles ethos and pathos

appeal, I can have it read by high school guidance counselors and featured on social

media as well.

Within the Burkes identification and division process, I will also gather a passionate

group on the issue. We would advocate for the idea of a mandatory class credit with the

class covering how essential it is to have both a high school diploma and college degree

within our society today because most jobs require a basic level of education or higher. If

a students Plan A route to success without an educational degree falls through then there

will be a Plan B to fall back on. This will be a required class during a Florida students

freshmen year in high school.