Change the color of font according to the uses of ethos, logos and pathos that you see.
Ethos in blue (there are 4 examples)
Logos in black (there are 3 examples)
Pathos in red (there are 4 examples)
Triple! - all three appeals - in green (just one example - found in the second half of the letter)
Arguing with Aristotle Email
The other night, we received this rather unexpected e-mail from our 14 year old son, reprinted here with his permission:
Subject: Sorry to send this to you in an e-mail…
I know re-registration for school is coming up, and I’m also aware how happy both you and Mommy are with me being there. The thing is, I have such amazing friends at the local public high school that (even though I may not show it all the time), I miss them so incredibly much, and I think about them every day wishing we had never split up. With such a perfect opportunity to continue our friendships together, it seems SO STUPID to me that we’re at different schools, when we could have all stayed together.
Every day that I’m sitting in class and I go off into a daydream, I think of all the fun we could be having together, all the times we’re missing, just so that I can be at a private school with a good reputation. The truth is, the local public high school offers just as good Honors classes, it just has a worse reputation because of some of the kids that go there. Sure I’ve made new friends here, but I’ve been hanging out with them every day when I could be hanging out with my best friends every single day.
I know you probably won’t believe me on this, but I decided to go here on a sort of an impulse, and because of the excitement of getting accepted in to such a well-spoken of school. I’ve been regretting that decision just about every day since the first day of school. I sort of feel like my friends’ and my relationships are splitting apart, just because of differences between schedules.
Also, don’t think that sending me to a private school is going to keep me out of drugs. I mean let’s be serious: high schools will have ample amounts of drugs no matter where I go, and I’m tired of all the racism, popularity contests, and disputes over who has more money. Apparently where I go to school it’s cool to do drugs, put down others for not doing so, and so on and so forth. I’ve already found out that there’s no such thing as a perfect school, and whether it be a private or public school is just based on which families have more money.
Now, don’t think I believe that none of this won’t happen anywhere else, because I’m not stupid. It just seems crazy for me not to go to a school with people I’ve known for so long, because these last four years are my last ones before we all split up for good.
I know there are grammatical errors in here, it might not flow very well, and I probably jumped around quite a lot, but I just want to say that this came from the heart, and I mean everything I said. Please just talk to each other about this. Sorry that I sent it in an e-mail rather than in person, but I just thought I could say what I wanted on here without being interrupted.