You are on page 1of 7

Chase Mullen

Professor Ron Carpenter


English 2020
13 December 2015

This course has had a major impact on me as a student and member of


society. The ability to reason and to persuade others is one of great importance.
Having been in the class and been able to improve my writing and reasoning was
and will continue to be a good thing in my life for a long time to come. That being
said, in any situation, there are certain expectations regarding behavior. As a
student, I expected you to be ready and able to teach me how I might develop and
improve my writing, and in particular, rhetoric skills. As a teacher, you also had
expectations of me and conditional upon my fulfilling them, I receive a grade. These
things include completing assignments, participating in class, improving my writing,
and actually retaining the things that you taught me. Based on my point total,
improvement in the course, knowledge of course materials, and development as a
critical reader and writer, I should receive a low A in the course.
My current grade as I am writing this is 83.5%. This isnt terrible, but it shows
that I have been struggling a little bit throughout the semester. An 83% does not
represent an A; however, it does show that I have been putting forth effort to do
well in the class. I am typically an active participant in discussions and activities. In
addition, it seems that you dont really care about the grades; rather it is important
to you that a student improves. It is important to you that the student develops the

skills necessary to become successful in this world. I hope to prove that I have
made progress myself.
My writing has improved substantially over this semester. I started off poorly,
so it wasnt too difficult to improve on it, but the amount of progress I have made is
significant. I knew that it had, if only on the basis of how I thought about things and
ideas, but after writing my post assessment and comparing it to my preassessment, I was astounded. Firstly, my knowledge of what rhetoric is has grown
much larger. My previous conception was limited to the way something is phrased.
That is more or less true. Rhetoric, however, is something much grander. One
definition of rhetoric is, the art or science of
all specialized literary uses of language in prose or verse. Once again, this
definition is not as good as simply going through all the different uses of rhetoric. In
beginning to understand rhetoric, not only was my writing affected, but my daily life
as well. I have begun to notice how often various forms of rhetoric are being used,
as well as how the effectiveness of a rhetorical strategy is largely dependent on the
audience and the person applying the strategy. One of my aunts provides an
excellent example of this. Ever since I was a young teenager, most of what she said
never carried weight with me, especially, however, with threats. On the other hand,
many of my cousins were terrified of her. Her favorite strategy was to instill fear,
often preying on previous pains like some evil vulture. But these threats were
typically ridiculous, if nothing else but for the complete senselessness of making
them in the first place. In addition, there were always large logical fallacies like
gaping holes in any argument she was trying to make. Now, this approach is
affective on a certain population of the family. This population within the audience
consists of those who allow their past mistakes and fear of them to control them,

and those who are just stupid or choose not to think. The rest of the family just
disregards them. Understanding the basic principles of rhetoric has helped me to
understand why this is, and given me a way of striking back myself. A fun way to
think about learning rhetoric is to imagine I am learning a language martial art. It is
a fairly accurate statement. After all, combat is really just another means of
persuasion. And we all know the adage, the pen is mightier than the sword.
When it comes to my writing, there have been several distinct improvements,
and most have to do with my writing process. Before this course, my writing process
consisted of procrastinating till the last minute, freaking out, typing a bunch of crap,
and then my mom would rewrite it so it sounded good. It is easy to say that that
process was not a very good one. On the first day or two of class, you asked us all to
think about what our writing process was. After discovering that I didnt really have
one, I took action. The largest change I made was starting earlier. That has allowed
me to develop and implement a writing process. Like everybody else, I hit road
blocks when I am writing or even just compiling ideas. Before I would keep going at
it and hammer myself into the dust until I had nothing left. These days, I know that I
need to get up and walk around. What works best is to get a drink, then play guitar
or ukulele for 5-10 minutes. This helps me to recharge and refocus, which helps
immensely with my writing. I have also added drafts to my writing process. Even for
a rough draft assignment, I do my best to have someone look it over and make
changes before that draft even gets turned in. I have had many opportunities to do
this in my German course. In that course, we write a paper almost every week. It
has provided me with excellent opportunities to further develop my writing process.
In the end, the language does not affect how I come to write it.

One perspective that I have come to appreciate greater is that of my bilingual


ability. For me, it is as if both English and German are the same. They are gateways
through which I express myself. It is simply another method I can use to reach more
audiences. That aside, I have also gained a new perspective on audiences. Surface
level things were always obvious. If this man was from America, spoke to him in
English. If another man was speaking with me in broken English and had a heavy
German accent, I would speak with him in German. But it has only been in the last
few months, and really just the last week or two that I have really understood this
aspect. The manner in which one speaks, the words and forms of words that one
uses, have a large impact on the hearer even when they fully understand what is
being said. For example: in the German language, there is a formal you and an
informal you and there are customs regarding the use of these forms. Since my
return to America, I often encounter people who, upon learning that I speak
German, spout of a random phrase they learned. This normally being, do you
speak German. One, this is always redundant, but what has slowly caused this
epiphany is that they almost always use the formal version of you. This sentence is
grammatically correct and I completely understand what they wish to communicate.
But the inappropriate use of the formal 'you' is just weird. Realizing this led me to
the conclusion that such things exist everywhere throughout every language.
Things where one will understand what is being communicated, but where it just
doesnt feel write. I see two applications here. First, learn and avoid these errors and
two, they can be used if the desired impact of a strategy is to make the audience
uncomfortable.
Understanding the audience has become a key part of my writing process. My
best example for this is the Holdman interview project. My entire part of the project

was based solely on what various audiences needed. I soon came to realize that
while I understood the basic needs of our target audiences, I didnt understand well
enough. And I couldnt if I decided to stay in an ivory tower and just theorize about
what they needed. I had enough peers who would be included in the target
audiences and was able to talk with them and get feedback. This helped me gain
greater insight into what people would actually want to read. And not just some idea
I had about what they may want to read. Then of course, I needed to adapt my
writing to suit their needs. Once again, developing rhetorical strategies was a key
element.
As you have mentioned, there are limitless rhetorical strategies. Some have
fancy names, but many are just strategies, invented to serve a purpose. All of these
strategies can be led back to ethos, logos, and pathos. As one masters these ideas
and really gets to know his audience, he will be able to invent a rhetorical strategy
for any purpose. It could be anything from getting a grant to applying for another
position in the department, perhaps a letter of recommendation, or defending ones
grade. Any situation where the outcome can be swayed, rhetoric, good rhetoric
anyways, is of great value. Not only does it help one to persuade the untrained, it
shows everyone who knows what they are talking about that you are worth listening
to. In this world, many people wont give you a second if they dont feel you are
worth listening to. Using good rhetoric is a way of indicating that one is indeed
worth the time.
Even though I currently have a low B, I recommend a low A for my grade. It is
clear that I did not complete all of the tasks to an excellent level, but the
improvement that I have made throughout the semester is remarkable. Whether I
receive this grade or not, this improvement will aid me in further developing and

help me be successful throughout the remainder of my college education and


beyond.

Works Cited
Rhetoric. (n.d.). Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved December 13, 2015 from
Dictionary.com websitehttp://dictionary.reference.com/browse/rhetoric

You might also like