During my time in English 1302 I learned two main thing including: rhetoric and the importance of consistency. Because we had to address rhetoric every week, in our blog, I began to look for it through the week and noticed it in almost every situation. This allowed me to create a new perspective while also taking something I learned in class directly outside of the classroom.
Another important thing I learned this semester is consistency is key to success in a class, job, and throughout life. Because I tried my best to be consistent to my class work, and also my job this led me to struggle during the class but in the end everything worked out perfectly. While transitioning out of high school into college I am beginning to truly learn how to handle classes and a demanding job. Hard work and consistency throughout the semester at school and work taught me it can be done.
English 1302 has allowed me to get a small understanding of how college is about to be as I leave high school. Even though I learned a lot more than rhetoric and the importance of consistency during the semester, those two things are what I will take with me throughout my life.
Everything depends on your target audience. Even though we did not discuss this during our class time I know from earlier this year that audience is everything. Throughout the year we took time to determine our audience before a paper or assignment allowing everyone to understand the importance. Therefor how is rhetoric in a proposal different or similar to a paper? simple. In a proposal, weather to a company, plans, or even a literal proposal for marriage, the audience all understands the situation so that less persuasion is used. Yet in an academic, or any paper more background information and overall explanation is necessary to convince your audience of what you are trying to convey. From proposals to papers, the amount of rhetoric depends on the situation yet all good pieces still contain some.
Saturday night, after working sixteen hours that day, my manager asked me to stay after closing and help take everything touching the ground out of the kitchen so that the floors could be fixed on Sunday. Even though I was tired and in pain from the long shift I agreed to stay and help simply because I was on overtime from the long week. In the beginning of the process we my manager told everyone to clock out, so that we would not be paid for the work because we “choose to help.” Yet with a little persuasion and determination I convinced him to let us stay clocked in and therefore got paid.
Looking back throughout the weeks, I began notice myself looking for rhetoric in my day to day life. Even though we did not talk about this in class, during our study hall the class next door had the show they were watching too loud. Therefore Mrs. Waits decided to call the teacher and ask him to turn the show down. Because she did not make her self the victim, but instead acknowledged it was someone else’s fault allowed room for them to unite and come to a solution together. With those results I would have done the same thing.
Through Shakespeare’s plays, I began to understand the importance of sticking to something. Even though it was difficult to understand the play more often than not, I choose to take time and understand. When I choose to understand I began to go to different places online which were created to help take the plays from old to new English. This furthermore enhanced my understanding of the plays as we read them in and outside of class. As we finished Macbeth in class this week, this mind set to understand the play helped me to complete the next project. Even though I do not understand the project or the guild lines for it, I understand the play and therefore will take that understanding to complete the assignment to the best of my ability.
During spring break week many people at my work decided to work extra to get overtime, yet that meant the owner had to pay us more overall. On Saturday of that week there was thirteen people on overtime and when we checked the computer it showed that we were loosing money. Therefore at this location we are unable to get more than fifty five hours a week. Yet because this upcoming week we do not have school Friday or Saturday I choose to push the limits a little. Simply because I would get the hours anyway I asked if he could schedule me long shifts this upcoming Friday, Saturday, and next Monday. Even though he did not give me the hours I was able to use rhetoric to try to determine him, even after I got other people’s shifts.
The rhetoric I choose to display to my boss allows room for improvement which comes after analysis. In the moment I choose to argue two main points, “you need me” and “I will get the time anyway.” looking back both of these arguments have room for error. So instead I could have said, “would you rather have one consistent person all day” and maybe “we both know I need money, and I am willing to work long hours for it.” Because of my relationship with my manger he knows I am overall a good worker and need more money after buying a car and therefore these two arguments would hypothetically work, next time.
In class Monday we finished Macbeth which allowed us to spend the rest of the week asking any questions and discussing the play as a whole. Something that stuck out to me was in act 5, scene 3 where Macbeth commands a servant to, “Go prick thy face and over-red thy fear, Thou lily-livered boy. What soldiers, patch?” (Macbeth 17-8) Because this quote has words that could be exchanged for harsher words, this could be considered euphemism. But considering Macbeth as a whole, the whole play revolves around the witches as they make predictions that later come to pass. Just like in act 1, scene 1 the second of the three witches said to Duncan, ” When the battle’s lost and won.” (Line 4) Even though at this time the audience has no idea, this prophecy shows there will be a battle or war which will lead to a victory.
This weekend my sister decided to come into town yet I had a shift at work Saturday morning I was trying to leave early from. Therefore, foreshadowing my own future, I left hints to my manager that because I was the first to go home they did not need me. Saying things like, “I am leaving at noon anyway why not just send me home now?” Which in the end worked because I was sent home four hours early.
Diving deeper to understand the importance of the rhetoric found in Macbeth allows the audience to develop a new application of the characters. Looking back, the three witches were solely used to foreshadow the rest of the play. Therefore would the play be as successful without them? No. Without their power to foreshadow the future of other characters, there would be no opportunity for the audience to truly develop an understanding of the different vital roles behind the scenes of each and every main character.
Through class this past week, many of our discussions revolved around the three witches in the play simply because they have many different purposes. One of the main reasons we continue to talk about them is the fact that they foreshadow the ending of the play. When they speak of the lives of other characters, all the predictions come true through the play. Which also leads to more questions like, “Why can none of the characters see the witches even though the witches drive everyone’s actions.”
A specific time I noticed argument this week was after Wednesday night church, when my sister wanted to eat. Instead of trying to reason with my parents, she instead choose to argue her case stating that, “Everyone needs to eat, therefore why not be social at the same time?” which understandably did not work for my parents because everyone had to be up early the next day. Event thought this technique did not work it taught me another thing that will not work with my parents.
Understanding the witches role, it is easy to look at the picture above and see them as evil people. Yet they are portrayed as different things, like children, to take away from the idea of witches. This allows the characters to because less afraid of the witches but instead to take the time to listen to their words of wisdom.
Throughout this week we had the opportunity to learn and discuss different aspects of Shakespeare’s life. One part is that he passed away in 1616 yet is still taught and understood throughout the world. Because he had the power to create plays that go beyond the actual meaning of the story with hidden messages from the political issues at the time to biblical illusions, he is known as the most popular playwright in the world’s history. Therefore by studying Shakespeare, we are able to see how their lives are different from ours in the twenty-first century and understand how these differences can be seen in multiple aspects. Also allowing people from all over the world, from multiple generations to all know and understand the same thing.
Because I know working long hours is never enjoyable alone I decided to try and get my coworker to work fourteen hours with me. With the help of rhetoric, I was able to create and develop an argument that at the end of the day convinced me cooker to work fourteen hours with me. Without understand how rhetoric works, I truly believe I would have never been able to reach my goal, but because of my education, I understand the importance of rhetoric.
In almost every play Shakespeare wrote, he created illusions to illustrate the complexity of his thoughts. With his illusions, we are able to understand how brilliant he was. Also incorporating dramatic Irony in the musical Hamilton as Hamilton goes to a dual he explains to not be worried because he will return. Yet because the audience already knows he will die in this war, this shows one of the many examples of dramatic irony in his plays.
Through this week, as a class, we highlighted visual rhetoric but personally, I was able to understand through the different styles of argument through the rhetoric. Because of the different things we talked about, mainly different websites, all had visual rhetoric but more specifically I choose to see how they were about the use that to develop arguments and what those encluded. In my mind, if someone is looking at a website they want all their questions answered, therefore there must include some type of argument thought the cite to show what the company is about to take away all doubt and confusion to the user.
My group got assigned to analyze a website that claims to write papers for students at low prices. Which hypothetically is something also every student wishes for, but in reality, this is plagiarism. Through this assigment, I was able to understand and further analyze that the style of each and every website that is like this, they choose to have a warm and safe feeling environment. Also, the websites choose to use customers reviews, whether genuine or artificial, and chat lines to address different concerns possible consumers may have. This eliminated the possibility for anyone to try to argue if the different options are accurate enough to strip away any doubt.
Arguments are everywhere, but the key is being able to see and determine what argument is best for every situation. Personally, though this week there was one major time that I was able to identify different arguments and watch one work over the other. During a class two students decided their grade did not match the work that they turned in, therefore they choose to argue their case. As everyone listened in one student choose to argue that I negatively affected their grade while the other showed the time, and effort she put into the assignment. The second student got her grade changed, and in my option, this was simply because she choose to use an argument which embodied her work as a whole.
From our three discussions, the main thing that stuck out to me was a music video we watched and analyzed titled Immigrants by K’naan. With the help of other artists like Riz MC & Snow Tha Product, the music video is able to portray the viewpoint of different immigrants while also highlighting what they go through to go to a different country. This music video overall allowed everyone to get a new understanding of visual rhetoric because of all the different aspects of the video all leading to the same message.
We discussed in class and also analyzed the music video yet I was to touch on something we did not discuss in class. Through the music video, I noticed many scenes in which the majority of the room or area was dark with a little bit of light. This overall theme began to let me understand the darkness that is all around immigrants. Yet with a little bit of hope, which is demonstrated through the small amounts of lights in the background, they must persevere with whatever hope they can find.
Rhetoric can be seen everywhere and in my life, I saw it this week when I went to look at a car. Because I saw the price was reasonable and it was the car I was looking for, my parents and I went to look at this car. Even though the price was reasonable my parents tried to talk the salesman into lowering the price. And even though it did not work the rhetoric allowed the salesman to help us with other things about the car, yet the price stayed the same.
In the beginning, we discuss a topic that most people know and understand and while some would see this as a waste of time, in reality, this is the time to make sure everyone understands the basics. Everything we review during this time will become the foundation that the rest of the year will build off of and therefore everyone must understand these topics. Throughout this week we truly got the opportunity to understand how authors write to prove their credibility while also reaching to their audience with emotions and logic which is also known as ethos, pathos, and logos. But personally, as someone who does not choose to show much emotion, I realized through our class discussions that too much emotional appeal can lead the audience either agreeing and being fully on your side or they could disagree and because of the emotional appeal they could be pushed away.
Because I am a high school student who also has a job I understand the importance of making sure everything is done efficiently and on time. But sometimes that plan does not work out. This week, in particular, work was slow and I knew my responsibilities were going to keep me up most of the night to finish so I choose to use examples with the help of logos to attempt to get off work. When I used factual knowledge about how much I work and the classes I am taking to convince, my manager, that my workload is too much they decided to make the executive decision to let me go home early. Without truly understanding the power logos has to connect to the audience, which was my manager, I believe my work for school would have fallen short.
Personally, my understanding of ethos, logos, and pathos grew exponentially when I could look at something and began to pick out each one. For example, during our class time we read “My Shot” from the musical Hamilton and in this piece we saw multiple forms of pathos and logos. As Hamilton invites everyone into his idea to fight he speaks that he wants everyone to be all in his plan together or else it would not work. While also repeating “And I’m not throwin’ away my shot” (Hamilton 87) to draw everyone into his vision. All in all, Hamilton took control during this song to remind everyone what he was trying to fight for and bring them together to fight as a team.
Everyone and anyone can analyze and understand what they should learn if and only if they allow themselves to know what they do not know. Using this same idea, I took time to reflect from English 1301, and past English classes I took so that now all in all now understand what I want to learn and improve on during my time in 1302. Along with other issues I see in my own writing, the main two things I want to improve on is my writing style overall and building my vocabulary to conveying my thoughts in a more clear and concise way.
I desire to develop my writing style from where I am now to hopefully creating a strong and definite style that can be acknowledged as my work. Because I believe some of the best writers are identified by their work and structure instead of nearly their name I would one day like to reach those same expectations, starting in this class. Using this class as a step to where I want to be one day is a way that I truly think will allow more time and room to grow into the writer I am supposed to be.
Word choice is something that I have always struggled with in my writing but also my day to day life because it is the thing that allows others to understand me, my words. And therefore I must pick the right ones. Stumbling on which words to use distracts from the overall picture and also stalls a creative flow more times than not. Therefore when I build my vocabulary to allow myself to be understood by more people but also to understand myself.
While these desires may seem small and insignificant, these two things will allow me to be understood by myself and others creating a stronger writer which is what I want. After I create a clear writing style, while also building my vocabulary, my thoughts will be able to flow from me to the people I wish to communicate with clearly. Which are two things I will learn from English 1301.
ChandlerVSmith 