TOW #1

“Can Emotional Intelligence Be Taught?” is an article in the New York Times written by University of California, Berkley graduate school journalism professor Jennifer Khan. This recently published article takes the reader through a very interesting and modern take on social and emotional childhood development. The author presents the reader with information on numerous different experiments in social-emotional learning (S.E.L.) that have taken place within the past five years, and offers a variety of reported opinions on the effectiveness of S.E.L. and its possible correlation to a change in behavior and mental capacity in later life. The purpose of Ms. Khan in writing this piece was to raise awareness in the general American public to this new and possibly groundbreaking form of education-enhancement. With developments in the field of S.E.L. being so recent and widely untested as of yet, making this information known to the masses of America in a mainstream source such as the New York Times is crucial for the possibility of growth. One rhetorical strategy that was used particularly well by Khan in this article was ethos. Almost all of the opinions and studies that she presented came from psychologists, neuroscientists, or professors at reputable universities. Using information from credible sources was a wise decision for the author to make in trying to achieve her purpose. The educational theory that she was presenting in this piece is not yet backed by enough testing to be credible in itself, so the advocacy of prestigious sources that she presents to the reader gives the article an overall sense of credibility at least as a theory if not yet as a proven method. I would definitely say that the author accomplished her purpose in writing this piece. The New York Times is an extremely well-known source, and her overview of social-emotional learning will therefore be read by many. Speaking for myself, my eyes were opened to this new educational innovation for the first time in reading “Can Emotional Intelligence Be Taught?”, and I’m very interested to see where S.E.L. goes.