Thoughtpiece Rhetoric

Ashley Meyn

Thought Piece Rhetoric

2/4/2014

High school was a very busy time for me. Between cheer and work, there just wasn’t excess time for my schoolwork. So when it came time to leave something out, it wasn’t going to be the time working on tumbling at the gym, and certainly not making money.

It was a Thursday night and I was exhausted. Cheer had been rough, preparing for our Saturday competition. Sleeping would be just about the best thing I could do right now, right? Ill wake up a little early in the morning to study for my statistics test.

As I am not a morning person, I naturally overslept and missed the thirty minute window I had set aside to study for that day’s test. As expected I got to the test and was completely clueless. I would be lucky to get a fifty percent on this one.

My parents would absolutely notice if my stat grade suddenly took a turn for the worse.  “I’ve got to ease them into this one” I thought.

I got home from school and cheer that day with a plan. I could not come right out and say that I flunked my test. I could just imagine their response to that and it wouldn’t be good. Using rhetoric, here is how I went about the conversation:

Mom: how was school today?

Me: ugh, wanna know what I learned today? Apparently I go to the number three high school in Iowa. That’s the third hardest school in the state! Could you imagine how much easier school would be for me if I went to any other school? I would have a 4.0 for sure!

Mom: yeah, where I went to school certainly didn’t have the acedemics that your’s does!

Me: yeah you guys went to a class 1A school, you should come to my school for a day, you wouldn’t last.

Mom: you are probably right about that.

Me: AND to have cheer for like six hours per day there just isn’t too much time for studying! I had a Stat test today and it was soooo hard.

Mom: Well I never took high level math in high school so you are already better than I was! Just do your best and we will be proud of you.

 

:)  

And this is how I eased her into the fact that I did terrible on my test using rhetoric without coming right out and telling her I failed.