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Jasmin Oh
Dr. Lynda Haas
Writing 37
15 March 2015
First Step Into Writing 37
First day of class and I was early by an hour and thirty minutes. I did
not know what to expect of the class as I sat there sitting in front of Professor
Pongs office. Would I hate the teacher? Would I make any friends? Would it
be similar to my high schools English class? What would I take away from
this class? There were many thoughts running through my head as I waited
for the professor to arrive, yet, despite my nervousness, I was curious.
Something urged me to turn my head towards the way I came. What I saw
made smile: an old friend from high school. After we walked past the heavy
brown door into the room together, a teacher, a head shorter than I, walked
in and began the journey of critical reading, literature review, and rhetorical
analysis.
The first official assignment the class was assigned was an introduction
presentation called Intro to Me. It was used, mainly, as an ice-breaker in
order to pick the groups in which we would be working in periodically. This
presentation was interesting for me because I had only done one other
presentation about myself in the past; however, was focused on my portfolio
of impressive work that I have collected over the years while attending that
school. Yet my flexibility was able to help me deter away from the norms of

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formal presentation that I have grown used to in high school about facts of a
topic to a simple, yet semi-formal, presentation about myself. What had
caught my eye with most presentations was the fact that my fellow peers
were more focused on selling themselves and explicitly stating why they
should be picked instead of focusing on presenting themselves, allowing that
alone to do their marketing for them. Noticing this, I tried to approach
presenting differently. My peers had all been static in the way they had
presentedpresenting about themselves; then stating why they should be
selected to be in a group with little variation in tone; I attempted to
incorporate a more casual tone with the audience, hoping to sound calmer
than I felt. Although the anxiety level for this presentation was lower than my
previous presentation because it was on a subject that I feel confident about,
it was still unnerving to stand up in front of strangers to market myself.
After presenting, we were assigned into our groups to begin our first
unit: literature review; every group began working on their presentations and
wikis on the topic we, as a group have collectively chosen. My groups topic
was elephant poaching. Because building and creating the wiki and
presentation was collaborated effort, each of my group members and I had
to take responsibility by meeting our deadlines and managing our work.
Working with this group in particular helped me become more outspoken to
check with other group members if they have done their part on an
assignment. It taught me to take action instead of assuming the work will
become done before class the next day. Collaboration for the wikis were a

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little challenging because only one person at a time from the group was able
to access the page or it would the system would glitch, causing us to lose our
work. Collaborating with this group did not teach me anything novel,
nevertheless it place me in a new position in a setting that I was familiar
with. It allowed me to see into the perspectives of my previous group
members who have taken this position. The wiki was something that
confused me and still does confuse me. I do not understand the purpose of it
other than to collectively placed our annotated bibliographies on. I wonder if
there was more my group and I had to do with it. We did not present the wiki
in class; I believe it was something that my group could use in our
ePortfolios.
In this unit not only did we focus on the presentation, but also viewed
specifically at the graphic novel We3 written by Grant Morrison and
illustrated by Frank Quietly. Briefly analyzing the novel, the teacher provided
us with a step towards a wider frame for analysis. Analyzing the graphic
novel felt similar to analyzing a political poster made in the 1970s, although
the panels and frames, splash panels, use of color, and the amount of
content on each spread are different from political posters. Graphic novels
are meant to convey a picture-by-picture story in which they express the
three Aristotelian appeals (ethos, pathos, and logos) and more. It was
different analyzing this type of text rather than enjoying the entertainment it
provides for us in that the my brain felt more active when reading and
scanning the images presented to me. When reading this type of text for

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pleasure, my mind tends to become vacant and absorb the information for a
short time, yet when analyzing this text, my mind was able to focus and
retain the information that and story. It is still difficult for me to analyze
graphic novels because I lack the practice and was not greatly interested
compared to other analyses.
After presenting, a literature review paper was assigned. The first
thought that had occurred was Great, we can finally start writing. However,
as I struggled to write the paper, my confidence level plummeted. I did not
feel prepared to write the paper in such a short amount of time. The prompt
of writing a paper in which we had to stimulate a conversation between
articles baffled me to the point of frustration. I did not understand what the
professor was asking of us, especially since I felt that the prompt was too
vague. As I struggled with my persistence to stay focused, I had an
epiphanyI understood, or had a sense of understanding, what the teacher
was asking for in this essay. Not only was it hard to understand how to write
a literature review paper, but I also found it hard to unearth sources for this
essay. My passage was the one of George Orwell and the elephant that had
caused great distress on a small village. The paragraph that I revised for the
essay was the intro paragraph. The intro paragraph is, personally, the most
important paragraph. It is the first paragraph that a person reads from the
print and can either draw the reader to continue or not. I enhanced the
introduction paragraph by adding a more specific topic sentence (or hook)

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that relates to the essay, fixed my grammar mistakes along with the
ambiguous sentences, changed tense, and introduced the authors ethos.
Beginning our rhetorical analysis unit, the class began by watching the
documentary Blackfish. This film was a heart-wrenching documentary of orca
whales living in captivity and the harmful affects that that could cause on
them. The Aristotelian appeals of logos (logic), ethos (ethics), and pathos
(emotions) were then used for diagnosis. This is when my curiosity spiked. I
always had a liking for the appeals, especially its fallacies of each appeals.
Diagnosing a media was something I had practiced all throughout my four
years of high school. The difference between watching this documentary for
entertainment versus analytical purposes is the thought process that takes
place. When watching documentaries for pleasure, I am affected by the
appeal to pathos more than the other appeals although I know that those
appeals are present. Watching the documentary for analysis, I detect logos
most, although, it is overall equally present.
After getting into new groups, my new group members and I were
assigned to do a public service announcement (PSA); we chose the topic of
dogfighting. It was an engaging project in that we had to not only work inside
of class together, but also out of class and on our own. Never have created a
PSA before, I had a memorable time letting my creativity mingle with the
creativity of others us in how the transitions would appear and how the order
we should present our appeals and pictures. We were proud of the finished
product. our second attempt at our PSA was better in quality and

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presentation than our first. During this project, I learned how a PSA could be
used in order to create an impact and the key roles the three appeals play.
Commencing with an audience and message, PSAs can be used to create an
impact for any and all issues using ethos and logos for credibility and
logistics that help the arguments legitimate and real. Pathos plays a primary
role in PSAs. Although the other appeals are important, the appeal to pathos
is strongest in the PSA because it is what motivates the general audience. It
is important to adjust the appeals according to the audience it is designed
for. I learned most from the PSA was that I needed to understand how to use
the appeal to ethos in a more flexible way. To this day, I still do not
understand how I learned and used ethos in my essays during high school
and am setting forth a great amount of effort in strengthening this weakness.
Exercising the use of ethos is a priority to continuously work on.
The collaboration in this project was more enjoyable than the last. The
last group we did not form a kinship that extended pass the classroom. This
group not only tried to become closer to me academically, but also
personally. For example, one of my group members brought her dog along
while we worked on the first draft of the PSA. Our contributions were evenly
distributed though I could not come to class multiple times because I had
became sick, yet they were understanding of my situation.
The rhetorical analysis paper was next on the class schedule. Having to take
a rhetorical piece I have read or watched from class was a challenge for me
for I have not written in a paper having to do with analysis in a while. Again,

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the metacognition for this is as same as I mentioned in the previous
paragraph: I had a hard time incorporating a strong ethical appeal because I
felt that my understanding of the appeal to ethos was nebulous. Another
aspect of the essay that I had struggled on was to organize the paper. In the
first draft for the paper the paragraph that I aimed to improve greatly was
the one in which I had discussed how the omniscient narrator presented to
the audience that the nameless man in Jack Londons short story To Build a
Fire was oblivious to the environmental cues that demonstrated the logical
appeal of disconnection between man and nature was an example of
disconnection between man and nature. The main focus I had on correcting
this essay was the concrete detail that I had implemented in the essay to
exemplify my argument. The quotations that I had used were not exhibiting a
strong portrait of what I had wished to convey. Instead of arguing my point,
the quotations had simply described the weather and environment, not
giving any insight into the man and his take on his environment. I focused
more on the analysis components of the essaywhich includes analyzing
over summarizing, the development of the paper, exhibiting how the
omniscient narrator persuades disconnection and stating more prominently
what the device I am analyzing are in the introduction sentence. I substituted
the informal words to formal words [e.g., very, get, but, seem(ed), show(en),
start, wrong, etc] as well. Finally, I deleted the paragraph that discussed Dr.
John Grohol's article. A peer reviewed that his role in the passage was not
effective and appeared to be used as filler. It, furthermore, did not fit the

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rhetoric analysis facet of the essay since it was more fitting of a literature
review essay. While analyzing the short story I would be using in my essay,
was able to reflect back into other pieces of work and its rhetorical appeals.
For example, We3 uses pathos over ethos and logos because it is a visual.
But my short story was different in rhetorical devise because the author used
an omniscient narrator while others used the Aristotelian appeals.
The peer review sessions for both the literature review and rhetorical
analysis did not feel effective. My peers were kind and provided proficient
feedback; however, a peer review that consisted of actual markings of edits
would have been better. Therefore, instead of stating the vague corrections
needed for edits, we could pinpoint the exact areas in which we needed to
edit. In this class we seek to locate focal points in what we have to focus on
instead of making edits and suggestions on the paper itself and walking
through it with them. (We did this later on with our rhetorical analysis.) The
peer review sessions for the literature review essays helped my openness in
that I had to be willing to consider this new way of receiving feedback. I had
to become focused on the verbal feedbacks because if I had not I would have
forgotten them. The two groups varied in their feedback. The first group, in
which we focused on literature review, did not give efficient feedback. The
second group, however, provide feedback that focused on what the problem
was exactly. Instead of giving a vague review, my group members did an
outstanding job of providing with what to edit and why.

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The connect assignments that dealt with grammar and helpful skills
needed in writing was an enjoyable activity. Grammar is something I enjoy.
However, there was one objective that I had trouble on: reasoning and
argument. Most of the components that I had trouble with under reasoning
and argument had to do with evidence that would support the claim. My self
evaluation from connect are sixty-one percent for being aware that I knew
the answer, thirteen percent for being aware that I did know the answer,
three percent that I did not know the answer, and twenty-three for being
unaware that I did not know the answer. Most of the answers that I was
unaware that I did now know the answer too were questions that I,
unfortunately, had misread. Although they were due to misreading, I will
recharge on this objective. There was nothing that I struggled on or found
challenging other than the reasoning and argument objective, yet I will
recharge on this and other objectives as well as I continue on my academic
journey. Along with connect, another supplement to the class were blogs. I
did not feel that it was useful except to help me on my eportfolio. It was
enjoyable to read some of my peers blogs to see how their style of writing
differed from mine.
In conclusion, I think the most important lesson that I have learned
from this class is to use different reading processes in order to understand
the texts, such as We3. I understood for the most part how the story is being
developed. Unfortunately, I did not catch the details of what the relationship
between the people was. It was hard for me to spot the villain and the

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antagonist. Instead of reading it as a Garfields comic book, in the future, I
plan to take a step back and approach this type of reading by taking small
steps when analyzing different types of readings. My priorities that I must
continuously work on as I advance in academics is to connection my
arguments better to my evidence and assure that my evidence provides
logos in return. I, furthermore, plan for attendance my priorities as well
because that had become an issue this quarter. None academic objects that
I learned in this class are to collaborate and be amiable instead of being
apprehensive. I, additionally, plan to take what I have gathered from
collaboration into my future. In collaboration I learned about different types
of people, how they work, and how to work around and with them.