Alondra Young

Bullying is a serious situation that happens to people of all ages. Bullying mostly occurs
to students still in grade or high school. Dictionaty.com defines bullying as a person who is over
bearing and who habitually badgers and intimidates smaller or weaker people. Due to social
media bullying has reached new heights, there is now a new form of this called cyber bullying.
The two genres that are discussed is a silent short film called STRAIN and a USA Today article
about a girl who committed suicide.
Audience and Purpose
Even though people of all ages get bullied the intended audience for the silent short film is for
high school students. Especially because the actual video took place in a high school. The video
allows kids and young teens to get a visual of how victims feel or what it looks like to go through
bullying. The audience already knows the impact bullying can have on others. However at the
end of the video it provides you with statistics on bullying. For example 19,000 students who are
bullied attempt to commit suicide each year. The video was very interesting and will keep your
focus for the whole eleven minutes. Not to forget the video showed an informal way of how you
can be nice to others instead making others feel bad about themselves. The audience of the USA
Today article about a girl who also committed suicide is for kids of a younger age as well. The
purpose I received from this article is to make todays youth aware of what the girl Rebecca
Sedwick age 12 and her family went through when a group of 15 girls bullied her at once.
Rebeccas family went to the lengths of changing her school, the physical bullying stopped
however the cyber bullying began. Reading this article I already knew and others should know
that bullying can have negative effects, but what I learned from reading the article is that young

children can be charged to juvenile detention for bullying. This is important because kids will
now think twice when they want to harass somebody else because of their own insecurities. The
language of this article was more formal then the video with specific details of what happened to
Rebecca.
Rhetorical Issues: Ethos, Pathos, Logos
The silent film STRAIN has credibility due to the suicide prevention hotline that was provided
towards the end of the video. The prevention hotline can allow people of all ages to call and
discuss problems that are going on in school or online. This is beneficial because teens or kids
can have someone to talk to instead of feeling as if they have no one to discuss their problems
with. Serious emotions are intended to come from the audience because the topic of human
beings humiliating others is a very serious. The video does this by setting a melancholy mood
with the choice of background music. The emotions in each characters face was also very
persuasive in conveying the message of bullying. In the video that actors who played the bully
portrayed it so well, you felt as if you were experiencing it yourself. The actors who played the
victim also did just as good making you feel remorseful for what they were going through. To get
all this across in a video shows the dedication of the director. All evidence in the video is valid
because situations such as committing suicide happen every day with the statistics to prove it.
Proof of this can be taken from the article. The USA Today article about Rebecca Sedwick
establishes credibility because the two authors Doug Stanglin and William Welch provide facts
on bullying. For example I was unaware that in the past 14 years, states have enacted nearly 130
anti-bullying measures. The emotions this genre provokes a mood of stress from its audience to
know horrible situations are going on. The article sets the mood because its always a serious
topic when individuals in todays society torment a person until she wants to kill herself.

Comments such as drink bleach and die were being said to Rebecca. It is hard enough for girls
of her age to deal with school and trying to keep and social life at the same time. Moreover
Rebecca had to deal with the common pre-teen problems and trying to avoid a group of girls who
constantly treated her poorly. To add the USA Today article is valid because it has straight quotes
from the officers about the background situation to the story. As well as the relations of the
victim and the bully prior to the suicide. The girl who was bought into the authorities was proven
to be an old friend of Rebecca. Another example that tipped the sheriff off in leading to the arrest
of one of the suspects is a lack of remorse being shown for Rebeccas death with a post on
Facebook that stated Yes I know I bullied REBECCA nd she killed herself but IDGAF.
Structure and Delivery
In the silent short film STRAIN the video begins with a little background of what is occurring
during the day. You can see from the video that formal dance is coming up. One girl is asked to
the dance. The actress who is playing the bully gets jealous it is evident that she has strong
feelings towards the actress who plays the victim. Later in the video you find out that one of the
girls who hang out with the bully used to be close friends with the girl who is actually being
bullied. The abuse by the bully progresses and turns into physical altercations. The victim
sincerely just wants her old friend back however knows that she is going through peer pressure.
At the end of the video the victim didnt attend the dance because she ended up overdosing on
pills. The overall video teaches you lesson to always stand up when you think something is
wrong and not to follow the crowd. The video does a good job of expressing the different
perspectives of the victim and the bully. The structure helps provide a full story of what some
kids might face every day. The structure of the USA Today article starts off by establishing that a
young girl committed suicide due to bullying. After that the article goes into explaining social

aggression among in teens. Cyber bullying has increased, reportedly one fifth of all teens have
experienced cyberbullying. To add the article also mentions a book source stating that
relentlessness of bullying can make teens feel isolated and miserable. The article then talked
about other states such as Georgia who was the only state to have an anti-bullying law, now
every state does except Montana. This is beneficial because the article is trying to discuss the
progression that has been made so our schools can be a safer place. After that the article gets into
details of what happened to Rebecca and the struggles that her mother went through having to
deal with school issues. There was no limitations when it came to explaining the story and extra
details were given. The structure of the USA Today article helped facilitate the purpose by
allowing the audience to know exactly what happened to Rebecca, why it happened, the
disciplinary actions that was taken after and what may have caused this entire problem to
happen.
Furthermore the two genres I used to discuss the problem of bullying were STRAIN a silent
short film found on YouTube and an USA Today article named Two girls arrested on bullying
charges after suicide. These two genres were used to help give a better understanding of
bullying. The genre that gave a stronger opinions was the article. I feel this way because it broke
my heart to read about a twelve year old girl who just beginning her life ended it due to bullying.

Works Cited
Stanglin, Doug, and William M. Welch. "Two Girls Arrested on Bullying Charges after Suicide."
<i>USA Today</i>. Gannett, 16 Oct. 2013. Web. 05 Feb. 2016.
&lt;http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/15/florida-bullying-arrest-lakelandsuicide/2986079/&gt;.

"STRAIN (Anti-bullying Silent Short Film)." <i>YouTube</i>. YouTube, n.d. Web. 05 Feb.
2016. &lt;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QbrRsOF0YA&gt;.