Hernandez, 1

Pedro Hernandez
Professor Jorgenson
February 17, 2014
English 114B
Rhetorical Analysis
The future is such a mystery, there are endless possibilities of what it can hold for
society. If as a reader you are curious of the possibilities, dystopian novels should be a good
read. Dystopian novels are regularly novels that are set in the future. Each Dystopian novel has a
social issue tied to the story, for example pollution or world hunger. For the story I created
Penny for Your Thoughts the issue is the lack of education with kids in poverty. I used the
dystopian novel format to prove that kids in poverty deserve to gain the same education as others
not in poverty.
Before starting to write my story I needed to look up articles for this particular issue. Like
I mention earlier the issue I choose was the effect of poverty on education. As a kid living in
poverty you may not be getting the education you need. Most of the time schools in this area are
poorly funded or if the parents dont value education as a priority because they view work as the
most important thing. In an article on the Huffington post Children and Their Learning and
Behavioral Needs: Not a Luxury, a Necessity we see the author Jane Aronson says Quality of
education is the result of many factors and one of the most important factors is parental
involvement and advocacy. This means that most parents in poverty had to work double shifts
so they dont have the time to be involved with their kids education. What this also means is
that most parents in poverty are uneducated so they dont know how to help their kids in their
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school work, this leads to the kids being uninterested in the material. I feel that if education was
funded more in poverty these factor can be eliminated.
Parents are a huge reason why people continue to pursue education. When the parent is
not able to answer the question it makes the kid feel lost and not wanting to understand. In the
Huffington article Children and Their Learning and Behavioral Needs: Not a Luxury, a
Necessity the author Aronson writes Many families might not know why their kids are not
doing well in school, and they are unsure of who to speak to about poor grades and
emotional/behavioral issue. What this means is that the parent may not have the time to help the
kids with work because, they might be too busy working double shifts. Another thing is since
they never finished school they dont know where to go for help.
Money is also a huge factor in education. The more money you have the better education
you can get. When there is a lack of funds in the school system the education lacks because not
the schools cant get up to date material. In Penny for Your Thoughts its said that Only the
higher class deserves the advance education the rest of the population just gets the basics.
(Pg.4). Seeing this proves that if youre rich there are more resources for example, up to date
books or tutor programs.
The little amount of funds that school systems is given is ridicules. Funds are enough to
buy books for just a specific amount of students. This creates conflict because since there isnt
enough books available its hard to do the work that is assigned. In one of the articles named
Superintendents Say Lack of Funding Harming Schools The author Paul Boger says All of
them reduced teacher positions, they increased the size of their classes. This means since each
class gets bigger not everyone will get a book. Not only will students not receive books but they
will also get old books, since the funds dont allow the school to buy new books.
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Derrick fits the typical protagonist in a dystopian novel. Most protagonist in dystopian
novels dont choose to be the hero, they become the hero because of certain circumstances. In
my story Penny for Your Thoughts Derick pay the ultimate price It was time to spread this
knowledge in Derricks memory. (Pg.6). this quote means that Derrick die in order to try to
spread the knowledge the government is holding from them. This represents how lack of
education in poverty stricken areas can be deadly. What I mean by this is if kids in poverty dont
have the ambition of pursuing an education because of the lack of funds the system has, theyre
more likely to join a gang and live a life of crime.
In conclusion, kids in poverty are robbed from the education they should get. There are
many factors to this. The main factor is the lack of funds. When there is a lack of funds there is a
lack of resources. Books become scarce and it becomes difficult to do the work that is assigned.
When there is a lack of physical resources asking for help from someone in the household is the
next best thing to do. Most kids in poverty dont have this luxury because, the parents are
uneducated and have no idea about what they are learning.
When I wrote this story I wrote it thinking about how knowledge is your strongest trait. If
youre knowledgeable you can see things for what they really are. The moral of this story is that
if we dont gain enough knowledge we just become someone that is easy to control. If being
control becomes this simple, society wont be able to identify what is right. What I mean by this
is that higher powers like the government might be able to control us and make us do what they
want, just because were uneducated as a society. This can lead to the rise of a totalitarian
government and the destruction of society as we know it.

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Work Cited
Borger, Paul. Superintendents Say Lack of Funding Harming Schools Mississippi Public
Broadcasting. 10 January, 2014
Aronson, Jane. Children and Their Learning and Behavioral Needs: Not a Luxury, a Necessity
TheHuffingtonPost. 30 July, 2013