Savannah Bailey
Dr. Bailie
2015 September 16
Waking Up and Taking Charge Essay
After reading, Waking Up and Taking Charge, it has persuaded me to stand behind reduction of
student college debt. Students need more financial aid to help them not fall into the deep dark hole of
debt. College debt is far too redundant. As our generations continue, college gets more expensive. We,
the students, can do something about this. If we stand up and fight for what’s civil and honorable, we
can achieve it. We can save the future for not just ourselves, but the future generations too. Anya helps
illustrate how to do this in her essay. In Anya Kamenetic's essay, Waking up and Taking Charge, you
might be thinking that the aim of argument is convincing. Well I'm here to tell you that this essay is
ratified in a persuasive way.
So let’s start at the beginning. Not at the beginning of her argument, but even further back. You
might be thinking, “What steps is Anya taking to move her audience in such an empowering way?” Well
Anya didn’t just write this up one day. She took the time and effort to make it exactly what she wanted
it to be. She first identifies who her audience is. Seeing that it will be students and educators mostly, she
now knows what she’s dealing with. She must change her tone and demeanor to reach the audience.
Anya also knows that she has to relate to these people by using examples from her past, or by putting
herself in our situation.
Anya is making a claim in her essay. She has a point and she wants her audience to not just see
it, but do it. She wants students to stand up for themselves and fight back. She even says, “if 35 million
people over fifty can band together to demand respect from Congress, so can we” (Kamenetz 408). She
is saying if 35 million people can overrule the government, than we defiantly can because we have way
more people than that. There are more than a trillion students who are attending school. If we all come
together and stand up for what’s right, we can do anything. We could create the biggest student
movement. As we create a migration, we would get all of the benefit. Anya explains that we need to
fight for, “higher education funding, fairer credit laws, a better designed school to work system, justice
system reform, worker protections, a living wage, health care, saving programs, support for young
families and homeowners, entitlement reform, and a million other issues” (Kemenetz 408). Anya feels
that we should get more gain from these things than what we’re getting now. Once again, if we all come
together we can make a big change.
Some people think convincing and persuading are the same thing. But they have mistaken.
Convincing is more of a case-making argument, while persuading appeals to reason and emotions.
Convincing uses more reasons and evidence to get their opinion across. But Anya uses persuasion
throughout her whole essay. She starts off already appealing to emotions by saying, “If you’re like me,
you’re a little impatient” (Kemenetz 408). She uses impatience as a feeling that most people can relate
to. This immediately grabs your attention and sucks you in. Anya also uses emotion to lure her audience
in when she says, “There is a model here in America of what students could be doing” (Kemenetz 410).
This makes you think of the American dream and what we should really be doing. The American dream
is all about living free, having rights, succeeding in your job or school, finding your path in life, and
eventually having a jubilant family. It snags onto your emotions and doesn’t let go. Therefore drawing
you in closer to her message.
Persuasion strives to influence not just your thinking, but your behavior. In other words,
persuasion seeks action. As for convincing just wants to earn your agreement. Anya Kemenetz wants
you to physically go out and create a movement. Considering the American reputation of being lazy, that
is precisely what we are doing. Simply being lazy and not taking the necessary actions. We can agree to
something easily, but to actually do something about it is a considerable step. All we have to do is start
talking to other students about this topic and eventually it could possibly create an evolution. Student
loans get more immense every year. Anya proceeds, “The student loan debt explosion could potentially
be more amendable to lobbying than any of the other problems facing Generation Debt” (Kamenetz
409). This shows that we can actually pull it off by sticking together. Our generation has that much of an
impact on the government. We also have a very big impact on society. Anya states in her essay, “Youth
activism could effectively address credit card debt, too” (Kamenetz 409). She makes a tremendous point
here. The fact that we have so many students in America means that we could honestly over turn
anything we want. Even something as big as credit card debt everywhere. We would be the start of a
changed era.
A convincing argument is a more formal monologue. Her essay is the opposite of that. It is
wanting you to make a decision. Thus, the writer must work extra hard to persuade the reader to take
action. Like I talked about before, she uses reason and emotions. She also has to use her personality to
make the essay entertaining to read. Anya is so passionate about this topic because she truly wishes that
she could overcome this problem on her own. But she cannot because she’s only one person. That’s why
she is pouring her heart and brain into this paper. So far it has made a minor change. In Anya’s essay
Jesse Ferguson states, “There’s a change you can see in recent years in eighteen to twenty four year
olds. They would rather have a seat at the table than a rally outside” (Kemenetz 412). People are
physically seeing the shift in these generations. People have also been noticing how we would prefer a
professional job, over a lousy part time job. This intention is slowly but surely approaching. This goal of
Anya’s is perfectly attainable too. She says, “Standing up for world peace is utterly admirable, but the
social safety net in this country was woven by people lobbying for their own lives, not fighting for causes
a world away” (Kemenetz 410). In this quote, Anya is saying that it is marvelous that people are for great
causes like world peace, but to actually accomplish this is unrealistic. Some of us are focused on the
bigger picture, more than the little things that go into it. We need to look at the smaller more attainable
goals we can carry out first. Then this will eventually make up the big picture and we can focus on bigger
objectives.
Anya has backed up her reasoning very well throughout her entire essay. After she put a lot of
thought towards her audience, she then understood how to reach them and how to connect with them
best. She used specific examples to portray her thoughts too. She relates to the younger generations to
hopefully make a stir in their heads that this is real. College debt is a very present thing that we have to
deal with. She’s bringing awareness to this tragic situation of student debt in the best way possible.
She’s creating feelings inside of everyone that reads her essay because she uses reason and emotion to
move her audience. She uses this in a professional yet laid back manner. Unlike if she was trying to
convince her audience, she would be using logic and reasoning. If her essay was written in a convincing
tone her readers would get a much different feel from it. She defiantly chose the best argument,
persuasion, because she got the best reaction out of her audience. So I challenge the next person to
take this information to heart and take action to lower student debt.
Cited Sources
Crusius, Timothy W., and Carolyn E. Channell. The Aims of Argument: A Text and Reader. Boston:
McGraw-Hill, 2003. Print.