What Causes Math Anxiety?
Make an argument about the persuasiveness of a written argument and offer evidence from the text to support your evaluation of its persuasiveness. To analyze an argument, you have to be a rhetorical reader—that is, an active and critical reader who can explain not just what an author says but how persuasive the author is or isn’t and why. You should focus not on the issue but on what choices an author has made and how those choices affect the audience’s response to the argument.
Use this articles for Writing Arguments for your rhetorical analysis:
Jess Goncalves, “What Causes Math Anxiety?” (pp. 267-72)
Sample Solution
In her article “What Causes Math Anxiety?”, Jess Goncalves makes a persuasive argument that math anxiety is caused by both environmental and physiological factors. To support her argument, Goncalves begins by detailing the environmental factors contributing to math anxiety, such as negative experiences with math or outside pressure from peers and family members. She then goes on to discuss the physiological causes of math anxiety, including genetics, hormones and neurochemicals. By providing information from both fields of study—psychology and education—Goncalves effectively appeals to a wide audience.
Throughout the article, Goncalves uses specific evidence to support her claims about these various causes for math anxiety. For example, she cites research findings on how genetic traits can predict which individuals are more likely to have higher levels of stress in response to challenging tasks like problem-solving in mathematics. Likewise, she discusses studies showing an increase in cortisol levels leading up to tests as one explanation for why students may experience fear or stress when faced with mathematical problems. Her use of evidence gives credibility to her position on what’s causing math anxiety and helps build trust with readers who may be skeptical about such complex topics.
Goncalves also demonstrates logical thinking skills throughout this piece by analyzing each factor separately before bringing them together into a unified concept at the end of the article: thatmath anxiety has multiple sources and that addressing any one source alone is not enough because it will not address all aspects of the issue adequately. In this way, Goncalve skillfully ties together multiple threads into an effective conclusion supporting her main point: that understanding why someone might experience math anxiety requires looking at individual components as well as their interactions within biological systems (genetic makeup) or social systems (peer pressure).
Overall, Jess Goncevalves' written argument is highly persuasive due its strategic use of evidence combined with logical reasoning skills demonstrated throughout the essay.