"Best in Class" Reaction (CRR)

Well, as a class we were supposed to read and discuss "Best in Class" by Margaret Talbot, but things changed and we ended up not discussing. I, however, having OCD and the need to get things done, read the essay over the weekend prior to the week we were supposed to do discuss it, so I would have it complete. Even though we did not read it in class, I am glad that I had read it on my own.

For those of you that did not read "Best in Class" by Talbot, you should take the time to do so because the essay focuses on a controversial issue that many of us and our friends may have to face. This issue is valedictorian. In her essay, Talbot reflects on the topic and emphasizes the amount of stress placed on students who are competing to be at the top of their class. The contest for valedictorian is more intense and more aggressive than it has ever been before. "At one time, it was obvious who the best students in a school were," but now with the changing curriculum and economy "the contenders for the valedictorian title, especially at large, top performing suburban high schools, are numerous and determined." Talbot's essay explains the lengths students will go to in order to earn the honor and title of valedictorian, and it also discusses whether or not schools should continue to have valedictorians and if they how many they should have.

Throughout her essay, Talbot uses many rhetorical devices, such as imagery and diction, to help convey the lengths students will go though to be valedictorian; however, the device that is most prominent throughout is exemplification. As a class, we never really point this out, but I do not think we have read an essay like Talbot's before where the entire thing consists of example after example. Talbot relies on her interviews and examples a lot because they illustrate how tough the competition is to be a valedictorian. The examples also show how far the students will go to earn that, as well. When Talbot uses the examples, she is also appealing to logos and drawing her audience in because of the real-life examples she uses.

Here is paragraph 19:

"I recently spoke to some students who had been involved in legal actions over the naming of a valedictorian, and they seemed to share a common attitude toward the experience. On the one hand, they shrugged off the importance of the honor—they had gone on to colleges where valedictorians were so plentiful that to have claimed bragging rights would have been seriously uncool. On the other hand, they could easily recall their high-school state of mind, and feel indignant all over again, utterly convinced that they had done the right thing. In 2003, Sarah Bird, a senior at Plano West Senior High School, in Plano, Texas, requested a hearing before the local school board. Another student, Jennifer Wu, had been named sole valedictorian, although her G.P.A. was virtually identical to Bird’s. Bird had played on the school’s basketball team. The sport was treated like a physical-education course by the school, and for several semesters she had been given unweighted A’s. This had put her at a disadvantage, Bird felt. The hearing, at which Bird’s lawyer asked that the two students be named co-valedictorians, involved some very close parsing. Brent William Bailey, Bird’s lawyer, told me, “Going in, the other girl had a G.P.A. of 4.46885 and Sarah had 4.46731—so that was a difference of .00154. Then the calculations were redone and Sarah came out with a G.P.A. of 4.47647.” The school board granted Bird’s request. “I was prepared to go ahead with a lawsuit if it hadn’t gone our way,” Bailey recalled. Wu, who expressed unhappiness over the decision to the Dallas Morning News, then requested a hearing of her own, to question the way the process was handled. Wu is now a sophomore at Harvard, where she is a pre-med student. We spoke just before finals, and she clearly had other things on her mind. “Nobody in college cares about your having been valedictorian,” she said. “My roommate had no idea I was valedictorian. It doesn’t come up, and I don’t think about it.” Still, when I asked Wu why she had complained to the school board, she said, “I wanted to make sure the school knew how traumatic something like this can be—thinking you’re competing under one set of rules, and having an expectation because of that, and then finding out you’re competing under another.”"

 

This paragraph is just one example used towards achieving the exemplification Talbot used. Throughout this paragraph there is also ethos and logos. The example serves as logos, but adds to the multiple examples used towards the exemplification. When Talbot says, "I recently spoke to some students who had been involved in legal actions over the naming of a valedictorian," not only is she establishing her ethos, but she also helping to show the lengths students have gone through to be valedictorian. By saying she spoke to students first-hand, she is establishing a trust with her audience. She has the knowledge and the proof that she got on her own to support her argument of how far students have gone to receive valedictorian. In this example, Talbot shares the story of Sarah Bird who pressed charges against the school board and was willing to go even further is she had not been given the title. This example, along with many others like throughout the essay prove Talbot's point.

 

What struck me the most about this essay though was that multiple students said that when they went to college, their valedictorian title did not matter. Nobody cared and nobody knew or even wanted to know whether they were valedictorian or not. I think the people, like Bird, who went to such extremes probably look back and feel embarrassed for going though all of the trouble that they went through; I know I felt a second-hand embarrassment for them. I also understand that valedictorian is a huge honor and a great title to receive, but I think that by pressing charges like that makes someone who is supposed to be so knowledgeable look bad. Plus, Bird went to Harvard and many of the students in the other examples also attended Ivy League schools, so whether they had the title or not they were still going to very prestigious, high-ranked colleges. All of the students in the examples went to on to medical school or law school where valedictorian did not matter and with that being said, I believe schools should get rid of the title all together. Once somebody is name valedictorian it is the end of the school year, and the students are already accepted to their desired school and have plans on attending it. The title is just the icing on the cake. Nobody cares once you graduate, so why does it matter if there is one anyways? I do not believe in the title, but I do believe in a college looking at a student based on rank in their class. That is something more personal and less controversial because it is not something being pointed to many.

 

Talbot's essay shows that being a valedictorian causes more harm than intended to students, parents, and school faculty because of the competitiveness amongst students. By eliminating valedictorian there would be less law suits and schools that operate more smoothly. Talbot even used examples to show some schools that have eliminated valedictorian. I think the examples used were excellent in helping to prove her point and can really get her audience thinking about the issue at hand. The examples showed that the problem occurred in the past, is still occurring today, and will continue to occur because people will never be satisfied. The students themselves said the title did not matter after graduation, so why does it have to matter at graduation?