“Saving Students’ Lives, One Poster at a Time”

The importance of education in America has long been emphasized and reiterated as demand for jobs that require higher levels of education increases. However, as safety in schools has become more of a complex issue and the frequency of school shootings has increased tenfold, education itself has taken almost a back seat when compared with the larger issue of saving the lives of children who could be at risk just by going to school. On March 14, over 1000 students stood up and walked out of class to participate in a walk out to bring awareness to the lives lost because of school shootings. Scattered among the determined, passionate, and even angry faces in that crowd are the words on the posters they hold. One such sign screamed, “We go to school to get As, not PTSD.”, and another reads “I should be writing my college essay, not my will.” In light of the shooting in Parkland just a month before,  these posters dig directly into the heart of the issue at hand, addressing the audience from the perspective of sources close to the matter using tactics that ensnare the emotions of the reader. Elevated feelings of pity, shock, and determination accompany the call to action hidden in this poster behind the reliability of the speakers and the timely manner of the poster’s purpose.

The PTSD poster’s purpose and initial intended reaction stems from the use of pathos in the words used and the meaning behind the words. The poster plays off of the innocent idea that the reason for kids going to school is to gain knowledge and get good grades on their report cards. The ideal report card consists of all As, so saying that a child goes to school to get As brings up the notion that the child wants to succeed, an innocent and pure goal when it comes to education. However, in the midst of that goal comes the contradictory image of having PTSD. This image is typically associated with traumatic events such as wartime tragedies or being a survivor of a horrific experience. In comparing the two, the As and the PTSD, it directly contrasts the images of a happy child that is succeeding in school and getting As with the image of an emotionally damaged child, a picture the majority of us can sympathize with. We feel bad for this fictional child and the horrors they have had to endure because we see the consequences of school shootings, such as PTSD instead of the prized As. While this poster play on the idea that a child can be emotionally scarred from such an event, other posters take the message a step further, bringing in the physical well being of the child in question, as well.

One such poster that elaborates on the expectation of what a typical high school student should be doing versus the reality of what could be happening, also using pathos to pull the audience’s emotions into the equation. This alternative poster compares college essay writing to writing a will. Writing a college essay is an event that is one of the first steps a student can take towards their future, starting the path towards college and the rest of their lives. The writing of a will, on the other hand, is an action associated with the end of a life, and symbolizes the lack of a future. This creates feelings of sorrow within the audience as they realize the stark difference in outcome based on a horrific event that is a very real possibility in many educational settings. This poster even goes as far as to say that a child’s life could be in jeopardy, not just the emotional well being of the child. All parents or adults who have taken on a role that comes with some level of responsibility for a child understands how devastating such an occurrence would be. Beyond just those people, the rest of the country can understand how the loss of a life is

beyond unacceptable, especially when that life is an innocent child with what could be their whole life ahead of them. While both of these posters effectively make use of the pathos in the emotional ideas and concepts presented in their words, they employ slightly different level of shock and pity for the authors of the posters.

The aforementioned authors of the posters are another topic of discussion when analyzing the degree to which these posters are successful. This other method is the realization of the identity of the speaker and therefore the relevance it has to the situation. The people we are to envision speaking these haunting words are none other than the people who wrote them in big bold letters on poster paper in the first place- the students. The students are the party directly impacted by the imminent danger of school shootings, making them the ones whose say has the most relevance. Their emotions and feelings on the topic are the closest to the issue presented, seeing as they have the closest perspective from within the walls of the schools that are at any moment in danger of being attacked. Having a student saying these things about having PTSD and having to write a will shows how directly school shootings impact them. This invocation of a reliable source with real insight on the situation is a tactical employment of ethos. The majority of the population of the United States is not in schools, so having these heart wrenching saying come from a reliable source we know has a unique perspective on the matter makes the point more clear and valuable. Having the students as the authors of these posters presents them as sources of relevant and reliable material, claiming ethos as a strategic point used in the persuasive nature of the posters.

The timely nature of the message in both posters helps convey the sense of urgency and the appropriateness of the piece in today’s society. The walkout was held to remember students

who had died due to school shootings, especially the seventeen students that died in Parkland just one month before the incident. In fact, in just 2018 alone, over eighty students were victims of gun violence in schools, almost thirty of which were killed- and all of this happened prior to the March 14th demonstration. As the frequency of school shooting continues to increase, the issue is drawing more and more national attention, with exuberant amounts of news coverage as well as a national walkout that took place on March 24th of this year. The total culmination of these events and the pressing and prevalent nature of the issue means that these posters at this time is an effective use of kairos. The importance of the issue of school shootings in relation to the time that these civic artifacts were shown leads to an increased effectiveness of the posters’ messages.

Both the PTSD and the college essay posters work to persuade people that school shootings are a prevalent issue that requires more attention and action by using rhetorical strategies such as pathos, ethos, and kairos. The PTSD poster invokes feelings of pity and sorrow by commenting on the emotional baggage that could come from a school shooting. The college essay poster takes the pathos further by calling into question the students’ physical safety. While the two posters have different calibers of apathetic appeal, they both use the speaker’s identity and the timing to prove the importance of action against violent attacks on the innocent and impressionable youth our society works so hard to nurture and protect.