2nd article - Battling the Bullies

Topic
The article focus on the seriousness of bullies issues that happen in Australian schools.

Content
The article covers about the bullying issues which happen in Australian schools. The issue has become more serious with the increase of reported case. The article gives an example of bully case who involves six-year-old school kid who has been bullied in school. The kid’s mother, Ms Watson realized about the changes of her son when he complain about his health. Ms Watson then discovers that her son being bullied in school after she went her son’s school and watch with her own eye where her son being teased, harassed and physically abused. Educational psychologist Dr Darryl Cross said that it is not suitable to settle the bullying issue by gather the bully and the victim. The statistic shows that the bully issue in school is getting shocking with one in six child is bullied every week in Australia. There is another case in Queensland where a teenager stabbed and killed his 17-year-old antagonist. Many of the victims do not declare that they have been bullied even after observing symptoms such as headaches. Dr Ken Rigby, the researcher in University of SA report that the ways of approach bullying depends on ethos and culture.

Source
The article comes from The Advertiser newspaper in education section page 21 written by Simos and Martina date April 8, 2003.

Audience
The article is written especially for the parents. This clear stated in the article few times that parents should aware about the issues. For example parents should first aware about their children as in “…it’s common for parents not to realize their child is being bullied even after observing symptoms…”. They also encouraged by Dr Cross to take action as “He advices parents to ask how a school deals with bullying before enrolling a child.”
This article also written for teachers in Australia. The reason can be traced by how the writer relate the teachers with the issue in which they are not qualified enough to handle the issue as stated “…because teacher in the main haven’t been given the necessary training to handle these case delicate situation,”
The article also intended for the counselor. This refers to their expertise in terms of human behaviour and they know how to approach both bully and the victims.
In addition, the article is written for school administration. The reason is they should aware about the issue so they can take an action to prevent and to settle the issue.

Rhetorical function
The article is designed to educate, inform and persuade the readers about bully issues in school. Child who has been bullied will react differently; hence, will affect his/ her performance in every matter.

Purpose
The article aims to educate the parents (who have child in school) on the seriousness of the bullies’ issue that happen in school. Beside that, it also aims to inform the counselor and the teachers about their roles in settling the bullies’ issue which are also their responsibility. In addition, it also aims to persuade the school administration to do something and create a new policy to handle the issue to create a save environment in school.

Perspective
The stance taken in the text is condemning the bullies issue that happen in school. The writer provides an evidence to support the stance by using the sentence like ‘…the seriousness of bullying, the victimized teenager had kept his pain hidden”. The writer wants to show that the issue only gives a bad effect especially to the victims
In my point of view, the stance taken is suitable because the bullies issue is a serious case which affects the victims in term of their safety and the study. The writer did a rights thing by exposed these issue to the reader so they will realize that it give more harm than good then an appropriate action will be take to handle the bullies issue.
The implication of the bullies issue will help the victims to get a new life without any fear and to study in better condition. Most of the readers do not realize about the issue and later, they will be aware of the condition in school that is a place to gain knowledge for children.

Positioning
The writer described Ms Watson as a responsible and a caring mother to his son. This is proven by the sentence used to show that she willing to investigate what is actually happen to his son in school as “watching her son in the schoolyard, she uncovered the source of his pain”. Beside that, she changed her son to a new school with hope that the incident will not happen again.
The bully’s victim was describe as innocent and weak. This is proven by the situation that the victim was almost being bullied everyday. The writer also states that there are some cases which can cause to murder like “…Queensland teenager who was bullied by another student stabbed and killed his 17-year-old antagonist”.
In the article, teachers were described as not experience in handling the bully case. The writer used Dr Cross statement that “…teachers haven’t been given any necessary training to handle these delicate situations”.
The writer described the counselor as a professional. The writer use word such as ‘professional’ to describe the counselor as the person who can handle the bullies’ issues.
Impact
The effect on readers is likely to be successful especially to educate, inform and persuade the readers about the seriousness of the bullies’ issues. This is due to the evidence provided to support the writer’s opinion such as by using the psychologist’s and researcher’s statement and the example of bullies case that really happen for example Ms Watson’s son who has been bullied in school. This will convince the readers to pay more attention towards their children. The writer also gives an advice for parents and schools on how they could react to faced these issue.

Visual literacy
The visual aspects of the text are significant because it give the readers a view about what are the writer focuses on. Based on the photo in the article, it shows that the bully is going to harm the victims and the reader knows how the bullies’ case happen. Usually, the bullies are stronger and the victims could not do anything except to follows what the bullies want. Besides that, the writer use the bigger font especially for the word ‘bullies’ maybe the writer wants to stress about the bullies who cause fear to victims. The word ‘battle’ might means that the writer wants the reader to fights the bullies.