rough draft

 

“I’m Done!” “No one is listening.” “There is no communication.” are all phrases heard from disgruntled or disconnected volunteers.  As the Director or Advisor of an organization it is important to keep things from getting to this point.  Written communication can play a key role in bringing people together, keeping them together and moving the group forward.  While written communication can be effective, it can also bring about adverse reactions, or confrontation.  Through a collection of Katherine Soule’s written documents – emails, PowerPoints, and survey analysis – she identifies her audience and employees the rhetorical appeals ethos, pathos, logos and kairos to address the disconnect of the volunteers of her organization and initiate positive change. 

Katherine Soule was tasked with bringing back harmony and effectiveness to the 4-H Youth Development Program of Santa Barbara County.  She took over in the summer of 2013.  Her position was Youth, Families, Community Advisor for San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara County through the University of California Cooperative Extension.  The Santa Barbara County 4-H Youth Development Program falls under this title.  This put her in charge of 2-3 office staff, over 200 volunteers and over 800 youth of Santa Barbara County.  4-H is a Youth Development Program that is an organization that uses volunteers to deliver a program based on experiential learning to youth ages 5-19.   The focus is to teach leadership, community awareness and service, and educational and agricultural projects.  When Katherine Soule took over there seemed to be a lot of discourse and disconnect between staff, volunteers and parents.  The volunteer Management Board, volunteer Program Development Board and staff were not communicating and were in conflict with each other.  Katherine explained when she took over, she felt like, “Everyone was out in the ocean all rowing their own boats.” She felt her main focus would have to be bringing them all together.

It is evident in the written archives she provided that she had to identify and focus on her audience and pay great attention to her purpose of bringing the group together.  This will be seen in emails, Power Point presentation and survey result summary. During the interview, she explained her realization that she had to respect that many of the volunteer’s identities were connected to their service and association to the 4-H Youth Development Program. The need for sensitivity, validation, and appreciation had to part of all her communications.

            The rhetorical tenants Katherine Soule uses throughout her writings are ethos, pathos, logos, and kairos. She employs the concept of ethos, which is explained as bringing credibility, expertise, or being well informed about the subject at hand (Losh, 2013,p.44), to establish the credibility and knowledge she brings to the situations she addresses. At times she uses quotes from others to further the credibility of what she is trying to establish. She explained how she feels the need to be respectful and sensitive to the individuals whose identities are related to their involvement with the organization so long.  Through the use of pathos she take great care to generate emotions that may lead the audience to be more accepting. (Lunsford, 2012, p.26) With Katherine being very academic by nature, it seems the most drawn upon concept is logos , “the appeal to reason, to the forcefulness of a well-though-out and well-structured position” (Losh, 2013, p.44)  She shows in  her writings that to bring about positive change it is logical that if we do x than y will come about. At times Katherine uses the feature of kairos, “the suitable time and place for making an argument and the most opportune way to make it.” (Lunford, 2012, p.27) She explained in certain instances she has to respond quickly to some problems when there is much controversy, emotions are high, or have high stakes, but all problems must be addressed in a timely manner.

            The first of Katherine’s artifacts is an email sent to inform the 4-H YDP staff and volunteer leaders of upcoming leadership training meetings. She is quick to identify her audience as the 4-H YDP Staff, Program Development Board, and Management Board and refers to them as ‘the leadership team that provides academic, administrative, and programming oversight.”  She shows that she knows of their feelings from conversations she has had over the last year, and is aware of the needs of her audience. By knowing and understanding her audience and their needs, she is able to identify the purpose for which she is addressing.

            The purpose of the email is to inform the “leadership team” of the training meetings she will be conducting, but also to address the number one problem of disconnect and lack of communication. Katherine lets them know she is aware of the problems and wants to “create greater community” and “foster a sense of camaraderie” within the leaders of the organization.  This is the true purpose of the communication, yet the communication is an invitation to receive training on three topics that are related to leadership strength, openness, and communication.  Lastly, her purpose for writing the email is to encourage them to want to get to know her better and have them know she wants to know them better. She to accomplish her purpose her uses a combination of ethos, logos, and pathos.

 She demonstrates ethos by beginning the email by showing she has put in the time listening to the current leadership and has made the 4-H YDP program’s needs a high priority.  This demonstrates her credibility for selecting a plan for improving relationships through the proposed trainings.  Katherine Soule uses a quote from Gallup. Inc. to show the credibility and validity of the training program.  With the addition of future dates and topics she shows her dedication to the program and demonstrates her planning and organization skills. By listing the topics that she has chosen speaks to the logic, logos, put forth in her plan to bring about change in the group through strengths, openness, and communicating.  These are all in answer to the complaints she had been hearing from many of the leaders. By dispatching the rhetorical appeal of ethos, she plays to her audience’s feeling of detachment by focusing on bringing the “leadership team” together.  She makes them feel she is attending to their needs and requests.  She closes with giving her audience the much needed appreciation for their “dedication and investment” in our youth.  The whole idea of the email is to let her audience know they have been heard and steps are being taken to improving the current situation and the leaderships concerns.

            Katherine Soule uses a Rogerian argument which Lunsford explains, “ Approaches audiences in nonthreatening ways, finding common ground and establishing trust among those who disagree about issues. Writers who take a Rogerian approach try to see where the other person is coming from, looking for “both/and” or “win/win” solutions whenever possible.” (2012,p.6)  This is seen in her efforts to bring a group with multiple views of problems together for the betterment of the program.  The only side or stand she seems to take is the side of progress and togetherness.

            The next artifact from Katherine is the PowerPoint presentation, “State of the Santa Barbara County 4-H YDP Address” she used to inform her audience of overall state of the organization. In this PowerPoint presentation she focuses on a much larger audience.  This audience she explains is a combination of the overall membership, volunteers at all levels, the general public (Stakeholder), and her academic peers. By having multiple audiences she had multiple purposes. The multiple purposes were to inform about the overall structure of program including management, planning, budgeting, assessment, policy and procedures, and diversity.  Pathos and ethos helped make the presentation reach her audience and purpose.

Katherine used pathos in the numbers and updates she provide to convey the feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction.  She is able to feed on the emotion of hope to inspire members and volunteers as well as appeal to the public (stakeholder) to rally and continue to support the program. By speaking to diversity she appealed to the feeling of reaching out and bring those on the outside into the organization. Ethos was featured in her use of graphs, flow charts, and outlines, showing her organization and her knowledge of the program. Her attention to the details demonstrate her focus on to the intricate parts of the organization. By using the University of California Cooperative Extension symbols and trademarks in the PowerPoint give it a sense of being credible and official. This PowerPoint presentation demonstrates Katherine’s ability to effectively identify and appeal to multiple audiences by using different rhetorical tenants to inform them of the state of the 4-H YDP. She was able to do this from a position of authority and leadership. While this artifact was intended for a large audience, some are for only one person.

In the next archive Katherine had to send this email in response to a single club leader that is also a member of the Program Development Board. Her primary audience is the one leader she is addressing, but is aware that her email may be shared with other leaders as well as it being copied to the 4-H office staff. Her purpose for this email is to address the concerns of the   leader who has explained her lack of trust and feels of not being heard. Katherine also realizes the need to inform the leader of the facts involved in a particular situation. An underlying purpose was to carefully admonishing the leader for missing an important meeting. Lastly she wanted to encourage the leader that change is coming and thank her for her service.

In this more personal email Katherine felt the need to use patho, logos, ethos, as well as kairos. In the opening of this email Katherine tries to make an emotional connection by mentioning the opportunity to meet the leader’s daughter.  She continues to try to connect by sharing her feeling of disappointment in the issue that is upsetting the leader. She appeals to the individual’s need to be heard and understood.  In the closing, she makes a point to show appreciation to appeal to the leader’s feelings of being needed and appreciated. Katherine employs logos to take care of address each concern of the individual in a very logical, orderly way.  She lets the reader know that the new structure of the 4-H YDP has brought about change and growth. Katherine suggests to the leader avenues to take if problems persist. Katherine explained that this particular issue was one that she felt the need to respond to in a very timely manner, and did so. In this email she demonstrates the importance of kairos. Katherine has to demonstrate expertise and knowledge, ethos, to correct the inaccurate misinformation. In this instance she must speak to the problem from a “well informed” stance. By her use of rhetorical appeals Katherine addressed and informed this leader and avoided further escalation of the issues of the leader.

In the final archive from Katherine is a Survey Results Summary. She again identifies her audience as a combination of the overall membership, volunteers at all levels, the general public (Stakeholder), and her academic peers. Her purpose was to create and present a needs assessment for the Santa Barbara County 4-H YDP. In her summary she uses numbers and percentages to show the credibility of her findings and conclusions. Along with her findings and conclusions she demonstrates ethos through the outline and structure of the document. She strived to emphasize that the results showed the overall feeling was that of satisfaction and quality in the program, but that there is still work to be done to bring about improvement. As in most of her writings she utilizes pathos to connect to the many volunteers by offering her appreciation for the commitment they have made to the youth of the organization.

By examining the various writing archives of Katherine Soule to the staff and volunteers of the Santa Barbara 4-H YDP, she successfully identifies her audiences.  She determines the purpose of her writings and effectively addresses them. By employing the use of Pathos, Ethos, Logos and Kairos she was effective in bringing about more unity within the organization and a more positive change of attitude. Katherine Soule demonstrated that by using different rhetorical tenants in her writing that she could guide the direction of the organization and help bring continuity to those who serve it.