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Author Topic: 2019 AA Club - Week 5  (Read 1326 times)

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MissSmiley

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2019 AA Club - Week 5
« on: February 04, 2019, 06:21:30 pm »
+6
Hope everyone's having a great start to the second week of school! :)

This week there's a comment as well in response to the main article, so you can have a go at analysing two texts. Remember, there's no solid focus on comparing and contrasting for the exam, so just be careful you're not comparing throughout your writing :)

TITLE: Please include fathers when making social arrangements for children
DATE: 3rd Feb 2019
SOURCE: https://www.canberratimes.com.au/lifestyle/life-and-relationships/please-include-fathers-when-making-social-arrangements-for-children-20190201-p50v2l.html   

NOTE: Part of the main article has been removed to ensure it was not too long
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

School is back and my mind has gone into overdrive with all the things I need to remember and organise.

My twins are going into Year 3 and they want to try new things. I am excited about all the possibilities for them, while also trying to preserve space in the schedule for free play and family time.

In the past few weeks I’ve arranged after-school care and activities, helped them choose their school sports, sorted out their uniforms, and signed them up for the school music program. Meanwhile, it’s their birthday soon and they’ve been promised a party I’m yet to organise.

It’s even more daunting for parents of children starting kindergarten or prep, so I was interested to see financial technology company, IRESS, last week announcing an additional 8.5 days of leave at full pay for parents whose children are starting school for the first time.

Flexibility is good for everyone, especially parents and most especially mothers who are still more likely to be the main caregiver for children in Australia. Expect to see more companies offer benefits of this kind to attract and retain talent.

I’m past that stage and while in previous years I’ve felt overwhelmed, I feel pretty good about my juggle this year. I have a fair sense of what’s too-busy and what’s not-busy-enough and I know if it becomes too much, we can drop back.

I book a lot of things online after the kids are in bed, so I don’t need to make phone calls during the working day. My children have an excellent father and devoted grandparents in their lives, so it’s not all on me. My husband and I use online collaboration and messaging service Slack to coordinate our efforts. I make most of the arrangements, but school drop-offs and pick-ups and ferrying to and fro is a team effort.

But here’s my plea for my fellow parents, schools, after-school care centres, activity providers, maths tutors, music teachers, paediatricians and everyone else involved in the lives of our children: If a child has a mum and a dad and you have contacts for both, please don’t drop the man off the communications.

Although most Australian mothers work outside the home, Australian women also do most of the unpaid care work. Workplace Gender Equality Agency figures estimate women spend an average of 64 per cent – nearly two-thirds – of their working week performing unpaid care work, and almost twice as many hours performing such work as men.

That probably doesn’t even include all the life administration that is part of running a household with children but is not directly care of children. If I reply to a text about a birthday party or answer an email about swimming lessons while I’m on the train to work, it's not technically childcare but it takes time and thought. I don’t begrudge it, I’m simply acknowledging it has value.

And we shouldn’t assume it’s the mother's task. These days most parents work, and sometimes the father is the one who is better at social coordination. Imagine how frustrating it must be for fathers who want to be actively involved to be continually dropped off email chains or other messaging apps so they miss out on key information.

And even when we know that a child's mother is the main organiser for her particular family, there’s usually no reason not to keep men in the loop. (If there is a reason, then use common sense).
If we don’t keep men on the cc list, how will anything change? How can men step up and do their share, if they are kept in the dark about what’s involved?

Not every father is going to become the organiser-in-chief for their family – hopefully because they contribute in other ways. But at least let them see the invisible work their partner does.

By Caitlin Fitzsimmons

Comment:
by Towers
1 DAY AGO
Of course no one talks talks how mothers estrange kids from fathers to maiximise welfare and child support. It has been 6 years that I have never seen my daughter, the mother denying me access, has cut me of and moved interstate with a boyfriend raising her and fathering her, lying to her that I do not exist, when will you write about men being abuse by mothers, family law, csa, men force to pay but with zero access to be there for their child, I have never met my daughter, it has been six years, all this happening in a supposedly developed nation called Australia where kids are being estranged from fathers, kids abused by stepfathers and being impregnated by foster brothers, step brothers, all this is the consequence of selfish women using all sorts of legal loopholes to falsely criminalise men

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peachxmh

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Re: 2019 AA Club - Week 5
« Reply #1 on: February 07, 2019, 02:27:07 pm »
0
First time doing a comparative language analysis so let me know your opinion on my structure! Sorry about the length (eek) wasn't expecting it to be this long when I was writing it! ;D
Also I'm still gonna include the title of the article in my opinion pieces because at my school, if we don't we get marked down :(
---
In an opinion piece titled "Please include fathers when making social arrangements for children" (Canberra Times, 03/02/19), Caitlin Fitzsimmons addresses the issue of fathers being left out of communications regarding their child. Employing a reasonable and measured tone, Fitzsimmons contends fathers should be contacted as well as mothers, in order to encourage them to be more active in supporting their children, as well as their wives, and because they might want to be more involved. She directs her article towards parents, particularly fathers, and staff both at school and outside of school in charge of communications with parents. In a comment in response to Fitzsimmons' article, a reader with the username "Towers" claims instead, in an aggrieved tone, that fathers are willing to support their children, but are deliberately being estranged from them by their mothers.

Fitzsimmons begins her article by arguing that mothers are already overwhelmed with having to deal with organisation relating to their children, and are in need of help from fathers as well. Through her use of anecdotal evidence in which she describes her own experiences in organising for her children, she engenders her readers' trust in her credibility as both the writer of this piece, and a parent suffering from the same issue. Thus, she builds rapport with her readers, particularly with mothers like her, and demonstrates that she is qualified to talk about the issue. She lists examples of things she has had to organise, for example "after-school care and activities",  "school sports" and "uniforms", and labels these tasks as "daunting". Hence, she positions readers to feel that the issue is far too overwhelming for one person to take care of, due to the sense of endlessness her listing creates, and the connotations of impossibility that the adjective "daunting" carries. By associating the issue at hand with the separate issue of fully paid leave for parents, Fitzsimmons causes readers to infer that in addition to the sheer amount of work parents have to do for their children, the lack of time they have to complete it is part of the underlying core of the problem. Consequently, she implies that to resolve the issue, it must be addressed by sharing the burden with fathers.

Having established that a lack of time is part of the issue, and that spreading parental responsibilities more evenly would be a plausible solution, Fitzsimmons then asserts that fathers may also be eager to help or may even be more proficient at it. She creates a strong sense of unity through her description of her "team effort" with her husband, thus causing such a scenario to appear more plausible to mothers in her readership, and appealing to them to attempt a similar collaboration style. Furthermore, she invokes pity in readers for fathers who want to be more involved in their children's lives by describing them as being "kept in the dark". The phrase connotes deliberate deception, hence causing readers to feel as though fathers are being wronged. Staff in charge of communications with parents are therefore led to feel guilty. Contrastingly, the user Towers, whilst agreeing that fathers want to be more involved, attacks mothers, claiming that they are instigating this lack of inclusion for monetary purposes. His anecdote about his being "cut off" from his daughter, and being "abused" by her mother is an attempt to vilify all mothers in a generalisation, thus painting them in a bad light, and invoking compassion for fathers by appealing to justice. This is because the words "cut off" and "abused" are commonly used to describe victims. His condemnation of Australia as a nation by sarcastically labelling it "supposedly developed" is a criticism of the lack of empathy for fathers, further portraying them as victims who deserve more support. In another generalisation, he characterises women as "selfish", which again suggests that they are the root cause of the problem, due to their greed for money. This serves to alienate mothers in the readership, but garners support from misogynists and other estranged fathers. As such, Towers and Fitzsimmons both agree that fathers may be eager to help, but whereas Fitzsimmons portrays women as supportive of fathers taking a more active role, Towers claims that women are deliberately sabotaging this effort.

Fitzsimmons then maintains that if we continue to assume that fathers don't want to be involved in the coordination of their children's activities, he will not make any progress in society. Her challenging of stereotypes around mothers being the primary caregiver of their children through her affirmation that fathers might be "better at social coordination" is a criticism of the entrenched gender roles in our sciety, thus appealing to readers' desire to be progressive. Fitzsimmons employs logic in her rhetorical question questioning how men can help out if they're not being informed, thus portraying the issue as having a very obvious and logical solution. By addressing her complaints to "fellow parents, schools, after-school care centres, activity providers, maths tutors, music teachers, paediatricians", she implies that the problem is widespread, causing readers to feel as though the issue is serious. As a result, Fitzsimmons suggests that by not including fathers in communications, we are preventing progress from occurring, as the issue is commonplace.

Fitzsimmons therefore encourages staff related to the issue in her readership to be more considerate of parents, particularly fathers, by including them in all communications, and in turn, also attempts to inspire parents to be more vocal about the issue. On the other hand, Towers denigrates mothers by accusing them of deliberately separating fathers from their children, and therefore casts blame on them, compared to Fitzsimmons who asserts that staff are the issue. Both writers do, however, agree that fathers are willing to be more involved in their children's lives, and ultimately both contend that fathers should be involved in communications regarding their children.
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Anonymous

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Re: 2019 AA Club - Week 5
« Reply #2 on: February 10, 2019, 07:39:57 pm »
+3
First of all, for a first time comparative language analysis incredible job!
You used some fantastic vocabulary and made some insightful points, overall you did a great job of moving from the technique used by the author to the intended effect and how the author appealed to different values of the reader. There were a few places where you didn't then bring this back to the overall contention of the piece but on the whole fantastic work! Below is some more specific feedback
(I have bolded the areas I am referring to and dot points are in the order of the bolded terms)

In an opinion piece titled "Please include fathers when making social arrangements for children" (Canberra Times, 03/02/19), Caitlin Fitzsimmons addresses the issue of fathers being left out of communications regarding their child. Employing a reasonable and measured tone, Fitzsimmons contends fathers should be contacted as well as mothers, in order to encourage them to be more active in supporting their children, as well as their wives, and because they might want to be more involved. She directs her article towards parents, particularly fathers, and staff both at school and outside of school in charge of communications with parents. In a comment in response to Fitzsimmons' article, a reader with the username "Towers" claims instead, in an aggrieved tone, that fathers are willing to support their children, but are deliberately being estranged from them by their mothers.

- wanting to be more involved is more or less implied in the encouragement part of the sentence, the listing at the end feels a little bit like an after thought which could be avoided by not using 'as well as' and 'and' straight after comma
- Sounds more professional to use Fitzsimmons than She but thats just something small
- Transition between talking about first article and the comment could be smoother rather than immediately jumping into the comment you could say something like "conversely, in a comment response to Fitzsimmon's article a reader with the username "Towers" claims instead ..."
- Perfect choice for description of tone!

Overall Great intro, your careful choice of tone description shows your adept understanding of the text and the intro covers all the important bases. A few small changes would make this even better but love it so far  ;)


Fitzsimmons begins her article by arguing that mothers are already overwhelmed with having to deal with organisation relating to their children, and are in need of help from fathers as well. Through her use of anecdotal evidence in which she describes her own experiences in organising for her children, she engenders her readers' trust in her credibility as both the writer of this piece, and a parent suffering from the same issue. Thus, she builds rapport with her readers, particularly with mothers like her, and demonstrates that she is qualified to talk about the issue. She lists examples of things she has had to organise, for example "after-school care and activities",  "school sports" and "uniforms", and labels these tasks as "daunting". Hence, she positions readers to feel that the issue is far too overwhelming for one person to take care of, due to the sense of endlessness her listing creates, and the connotations of impossibility that the adjective "daunting" carries. By associating the issue at hand with the separate issue of fully paid leave for parents, Fitzsimmons causes readers to infer that in addition to the sheer amount of work parents have to do for their children, the lack of time they have to complete it is part of the underlying core of the problem. Consequently, she implies that to resolve the issue, it must be addressed by sharing the burden with fathers.
- unnecessary
- rather than moving straight on to the next point, you should try to think about how does this direct the audience back to Fitzsimmons contention? You have implied that it does which is great but by directly saying the pathway the reader takes back to the contention you make the examiners life a lot easier. perhaps by stating 'she is qualified to talk about the issue and thus her perspective that men should take on a more active role in the lives of their children, is one that should be trusted by the reader'
- I like your exploration of the word 'daunting' and how Fitzsimmons uses this in conjunction with the listing to create an even greater effect.
- This is a good example of one of the spots where you highlight how the language technique encourages the audience to side with the authors contention, see how its super obvious that you're connecting to the contention where in other spots its mostly implied.

Again great work .. main point here is to make the connection between the language technique and how it positions the reader to agree with the authors contention as clear as possible for the examiner. 

Having established that a lack of time is part of the issue, and that spreading parental responsibilities more evenly would be a plausible solution, Fitzsimmons then asserts that fathers may also be eager to help or may even be more proficient at it. She creates a strong sense of unity through her description of her "team effort" with her husband, thus causing such a scenario to appear more plausible to mothers in her readership, and appealing to them to attempt a similar collaboration style. Furthermore, she invokes pity in readers for fathers who want to be more involved in their children's lives by describing them as being "kept in the dark". The phrase connotes deliberate deception, hence causing readers to feel as though fathers are being wronged. Staff in charge of communications with parents are therefore led to feel guilty. Contrastingly, the user Towers, whilst agreeing that fathers want to be more involved, attacks mothers, claiming that they are instigating this lack of inclusion for monetary purposes. His anecdote about his being "cut off" from his daughter, and being "abused" by her mother is an attempt to vilify all mothers in a generalisation, thus painting them in a bad light, and invoking compassion for fathers by appealing to justice. This is because the words "cut off" and "abused" are commonly used to describe victims. His condemnation of Australia as a nation by sarcastically labelling it "supposedly developed" is a criticism of the lack of empathy for fathers, further portraying them as victims who deserve more support. In another generalisation, he characterises women as "selfish", which again suggests that they are the root cause of the problem, due to their greed for money. This serves to alienate mothers in the readership, but garners support from misogynists and other estranged fathers. As such, Towers and Fitzsimmons both agree that fathers may be eager to help, but whereas Fitzsimmons portrays women as supportive of fathers taking a more active role, Towers claims that women are deliberately sabotaging this effort.
- could mention that Fitzsimmons also begins with an anecdote (ie. is this significant due to who their audience is?)
- again how does this extend to furthering the contention of Towers
- really great concluding sentence for this comparative paragraph; shows a lot of insight into the differences between the two authors viewpoints whilst also showing what they have in common

Another really good paragraph, in terms of comparison you did a great job by both comparing and contrasting however if you're only going to discuss the comment once then perhaps it would be better to include it in your final body paragraph for continuity's sake? Loved your expression and again perceptive discussion of key terms and phrases rather than just techniques.


Fitzsimmons then maintains that if we continue to assume that fathers don't want to be involved in the coordination of their children's activities, he will not make any progress in society. Her challenging of stereotypes around mothers being the primary caregiver of their children through her affirmation that fathers might be "better at social coordination" is a criticism of the entrenched gender roles in our sciety, thus appealing to readers' desire to be progressive. Fitzsimmons employs logic in her rhetorical question questioning how men can help out if they're not being informed, thus portraying the issue as having a very obvious and logical solution. By addressing her complaints to "fellow parents, schools, after-school care centres, activity providers, maths tutors, music teachers, paediatricians", she implies that the problem is widespread, causing readers to feel as though the issue is serious. As a result, Fitzsimmons suggests that by not including fathers in communications, we are preventing progress from occurring, as the issue is commonplace.
 
- only a small thing but maybe start with something other than immediately 'Fitzsimmons' given you did that for your first body
- this is a good opportunity to then link back to Fitzsimmons contention
- could extend this by saying that she also depicts those who don't agree with her contention as lacking logic?

Love this paragraph! only small things that could be changed here to extend your discussion and show further understanding of how the author is utilising language to ultimately further her contention.


Fitzsimmons therefore encourages staff related to the issue in her readership to be more considerate of parents, particularly fathers, by including them in all communications, and in turn, also attempts to inspire parents to be more vocal about the issue. On the other hand, Towers denigrates mothers by accusing them of deliberately separating fathers from their children, and therefore casts blame on them, compared to Fitzsimmons who asserts that staff are the issue. Both writers do, however, agree that fathers are willing to be more involved in their children's lives, and ultimately both contend that fathers should be involved in communications regarding their children.
- perhaps change therefore to ultimately to make it clearer that you are starting your conclusion
       * You mentioned at the start that your school marks down for not including title of the article in the intro; my school does the same and we're also encouraged to include it in our conclusion so that might be something your teachers would like as well? up to personal preference though.
- great word!!
- good place to start a new sentence, just starting to get a bit long and awkward

Good conclusion, again only minor adjustments to make it better.



Fantastic Job with your first comparative language analysis!! With time and practice the structure and your own technique for comparing will come more naturally. Overall great use of vocabulary and insightful discussion of the articles. In future to extend your pieces you should try to think about how the author is ultimately trying to lead the reader back to their contention. Keep up the great work  :D

MissSunshine

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Re: 2019 AA Club - Week 5
« Reply #3 on: February 10, 2019, 08:03:35 pm »
+2
Just realised i posted my feedback on anon   :o oops
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