Question

Select an article from the New York Times (can be online) and develop a persuasive speech outline out of the article using the Motivated Sequence design provided below. Please link me or copy the article you use. First make a claim statement, then fill in each portion of the Motivated Design Sequence using the article as evidence. Make sure that you define what each step of the Motivated Sequence Design means and then provide full sentence explanations of each section. In other words, WRITE OUT WHAT YOU WOULD SAY TO THE AUDIENCE for each section.

CLAIM:

ATTENTION:

NEED:

SATISFY:

VISUALIZATION:

ACTION:

L.G.B.T. Students in Oregon Were Bullied and Forced to Read Bible, Report Says

In the hallways of a rural Oregon high school, lesbian students were taunted with homophobic slurs. In the cafeteria, students pelted a transgender student with food. And when lesbian students got into trouble, the school’s principal assigned a specific punishment just for them: readings from the Bible.

Students detailed those allegations in recent state investigative reports into the North Bend School District, a coastal area about 100 miles north of California. In the reports, lesbian high school students described years of harassment and bigotry from school employees and other students, and a deeply religious culture that silenced their complaints.

The two reports, completed in March by an investigator in the Oregon Department of Education and made public this month, found that top officials in North Bend had for at least the past two school years fostered hostile conditions for lesbian students, hesitated to intervene after reports of sexual harassment and retaliated against a school counselor who had cooperated with the state investigation.

The state found “substantial evidence” of discrimination against lesbian, bisexual and transgender students at North Bend High School. “The department finds that discrimination on the basis of sex and sexual orientation may have occurred,” the investigator wrote.

In schools across the country, L.G.B.T. students are more likely to be bullied and suffer depression than their straight peers, studies have found. It is no different in Oregon, gay and lesbian activists said, despite the perception of the state, and particularly places like Portland, as a progressive paradise.

In the state reports, the district denied that students had been mistreated and said that when they had reported cases of harassment, it resolved them promptly and appropriately.

School officials initially denied that students were required to read the Bible as punishment. But they later told investigators it was true, adding that they handed down the punishment not to promote a religion but “to assist students in understanding the effects of certain behaviors.”

The state ordered North Bend in March to settle with a pair of female students whose complaints to the State Department of Education led to the investigation. But no deal was reached, so the state has scheduled a hearing on May 24 with both sides to help mediate a resolution.

North Bend’s superintendent, Bill Yester, said Wednesday that the district disputes many of the state’s findings and will present its evidence at the hearing. He said the Bible was used as punishment only once.

“The district works hard every day to make sure all students feel respected and safe at school and will continue these efforts regardless of the outcome of the hearing,” Mr. Yester said.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon has agreed to represent the students next week.

“It’s incredibly troubling that there is a school in Oregon that thinks it’s O.K. to discipline students using forced readings of the Bible,” Mat dos Santos, the chapter’s legal director, said in an interview. “It’s equally troubling that there are students who feel unsafe going to school because they identify as L.G.B.T.Q.”

The two female students, who had dated while attending North Bend High School, brought their stories to the state last summer.

The discrimination they described included a teacher telling them that their kissing was “disgusting,” the principal’s son yelling anti-lesbien slurs at one of them and a school resource officer dismissing their complaints about harassment.

The officer told them that “homosexuality is a lifestyle that someone chooses and revealed that homosexuality is against the school resource officer’s personal religious beliefs,” according to the reports.

While the North Bend School District denied many of the allegations, a school counselor and mental health professionals in Coos County told the state investigator that the stories of discrimination were similar to those they had heard from other students. The school counselor said administrators had discarded past reports of harassment.

There is “a general lack of awareness within the local culture of how personal beliefs have interfered with identifying discrimination,” they wrote in a letter to the state.

Administrators reassigned the counselor to another school after they discovered the employee had been cooperating with the investigation, the report said.

For the past three years, a group of L.G.B.T. students in North Bend have met in private once a week to discuss their experiences. Last fall, lesbian activists also held a community meeting at the county museum to discuss discrimination in the area.

“Kids can be cruel, and it’s coddled,” said Alan Brown, a lesbian activist in the area who helped organize the community event, where one of the students spoke about her experiences at North Bend High School. “I experienced my own harassment growing up here.”

Shortly after the youth weekly meetings began, the two students who later filed the complaints started to show up and share their stories, said the Rev. Israel Jurich, a pastor at Faith Lutheran Church in North Bend who helped organize the events.

“It didn’t surprise me to hear the stories that these students shared,” Pastor Jurich said in an interview. “But the severity of it surprised me a little bit.”

Pastor Jurich said he had been helping the two students through his church. The students are not seeking monetary damages from the district, he said, but wanted North Bend officials to better train school employees and enforce its existing anti-bullying policy.

“The policy is great, but it doesn’t matter if it’s not enforced,” he said.

Answer 1

Claim- The story is describing about social status of LGBTs in USA and problems and social criticism. The story is claiming that the condition of discrimination and prejudice is almost same and more problematic in schools and colleges.

Attention- The article is compiling attention towards social condition and problems of LGBT in the country. The section of story is grasping our attention because it belongs to our culture, social development and prejudice too. LGBTs are part of society but still they are experiencing social discrimination and reluctant relations by rest of the society.

Need- The article is important because it is telling us the current situation of schools and colleges so that every society need to aware towards social behaviour towards LGBTs. Reports describes that the bullying, prejudicial behaviour and social discrimination is spreading in the country. Members of society need to find the fundamental problems and psychological issues regarding such kind of problems so that the article taking our attention towards human rights, social conditions and behaviour of society.

Visualization- The report is visualized by researches and surveys which enables interviews, situation and ex-facto models. Data of article collected through direct selection, reports and actual conditions. Many reports collected from schools, colleges and universities who stated the discrimination in society.

Action- The proper action in important part to handle the situation but awareness and social relations are more important than direct action. Anti-bullying policy, punishment and direct intervention are good responses but not able to find and solve the real issue. I think the responsibility of family, friends and community is important to solve the issue and hard action must be taken by school administration rather than admiring the problems.

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