Ralph Santos

Writing 39B
Mr. Seigel
RIP Essay
http://ralphls.wixsite.com/rip39b
The Art of Lost Art
In our current technological era, the beauty of art and literature has been forgotten despite
its heavy importance in the past. For my Rhetoric-In-Practice project, I wanted to create a
product that corresponds with the message of Emily St. John Mandels Station Eleven. I created a
website that highlights the message of the novel that art has a strong influence in finding a
persons identity. This website is intended to be accessed by a technological literate audience of
all ages since this type of audience tends to be the ones who prefer technology over art and
literature. The purpose of this website is to introduce Station Eleven, and make my audience
realize that the use of art to reflect and express themselves is important for their physical and
emotional health. The use of Station Eleven with this project was crucial due to the fact that the
novel contains characters, which I used on the website, that are relatable to many types of
audiences.
The thing that fueled me to create this project was research and personal experience.
Being in a big family I notice that lack of people in my family who have a creative influence
with their lives being surrounded by technology. It is hard to see my younger cousins who value
their iPads more than their books. Through research, I found statistics showing that the amount
of people of own technology through the years. The Pew Research Center has numbers that show
the continuous annual growth of technology ownership with cell phones and smartphones being
the most owned at ninety-two percent. Most Americans have access to powerful technology that

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can distract them from the real world. Melissa Nilless article about the negative effects of
technology highlights the idea that technology is destroying the quality of human interaction.
Little by little, Internet and mobile technology seems to be subtly destroying the
meaningfulness of interactions we have with others, disconnecting us from the world
around us, and leading to an imminent sense of isolation today. Instead of spending time
in person with friends, we just call, text or instant message them. It may seem simpler,
but we ultimately end up seeing our friends face to face a lot less. Ten texts cant even
begin to equal an hour spent chatting with a friend over lunch. And a smiley-face
emoticon is cute, but it could never replace the ear-splitting grin and smiling eyes of one
of your best friends. Face time is important, people. We need to see each other. (Nilles 3)
Nilless article is an indication of technologys negative influence in changing peoples social
interactions. As the number of technology ownership increases, the number of art programs in
the American public school system decreases. An educational article by Valeriya Metla,
highlights the fact that twenty percent of public schools offered art classes during the school year
of 1999 to 2000, while only three percent of public schools offered art classes a decade later. It
has been proven that art classes give children the opportunity to be creative, and their creativity
generates a positive impact on other aspects of their school work. With statistics that show an
indirect relationship between technology ownership and art class availability, it is important for
people to rediscover the value of art in a world ruled by technology.
Classwork activities regarding audience, and other models of Rhetoric-In-Practice
websites helped with the creation of my project. The creation of the website took a couple of
drafts. At first, the website was only plain text with stable images all over the website. As I

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learned new techniques in creating appealing projects to specific audiences, I designed a website
that effectively sends the message I want effectively through great appeal to my audience. The
website now features visual and auditory components that relate to the Post-Apocalyptic genre.
Visual and auditory components are crucial in creating appeal because such components can be
understood universally. The design of my website was built around the post-apocalyptic genre,
and was designed with the intended audience in mind.
The Road to the RIP figure on page 221 of the Anteaters Guide to Writing and
Rhetoric played a huge role in structuring and putting my RIP project to reality. The figure
carefully gave me and my peers a process one step at a time in creating an effective RIP project.
Each step had a purpose in helping me think about why I am creating my project and for whom
in what context. The steps were also put in logical order because each step builds upon each
other.
The first steps given to use by the book consists of choosing a purpose, an audience, and
a context. To put into simpler terms, the book defines this step as a means of asking What do
you want to communicate, and whom do you want to communicate to? (221). This step was a
set-up for my project because it helped me think about what I really want to do for this project. I
used Station Elevens message about the ability of art to preserve culture to come up with my
purpose for my RIP project to create a piece that stresses the importance of art in everyday lives.
As I mentioned earlier, I wanted my project to face the problem of technological glorification in
the world today. In my RIP proposal, I proposed creating diary entries that highlights the life of a
person who lives without technology in the modern era. I thought about this with a general
audience in mind because I knew that my purpose applies to a lot of people. However, as I
progressed with my project, I thought about tweaking my audience to be more specific. So I

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thought about who in this world tend to stray away from technology? I came up with the
technological literate audience. This change of audience led to a change in my proposed project
into a website. It was only logical that a technological literate audience would rather look at a
website than a piece of paper. Overall, the first step of this process was fueled by one purpose,
and that purpose drove the course of my audience and context for my RIP project to be more
effective.
After discovering my purpose, audience, and context, I was set to define my genre,
medium, and venue. Knowing my purpose and my technological literate audience made this
process easier. I chose a website as my genre because it is something that relates well with my
audience. Knowing that this website will be available everywhere by anyone with internet access
made me realize why my purpose and audience works well with this genre. This step was easier
to finish because the first step breaks this step open. Ultimately, the steps panned out by our class
book made the process of creating project easier.
The website contains six pages that features visual and auditory components that have a
purpose on my website. The home page contains a clock that is accompanied by a ticking
background noise to create a sense of urgency for my audience. The red font of THE END IS
NEAR and the darker hue of the first page supports the post-apocalyptic convention of
darkness. The other pages of the website have a background of calming music and a lightly lit
candle so that the audience of my website can view and read the other pages calmly and see it as
a time of reflection and understanding about the beauty of Station Eleven and artwork in general.
The Station Eleven page contains an image of the novel and a link to a website to purchase the
novel. This page contains a summary of the novel so that an audience has a clear understanding
about what the novel is all about. This page sets up the next four pages who have similar

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structures. The next four pages are for four important characters in Station Eleven that help
promote my message regarding the importance of art and reflection. Each page of the character
contains a quote from the novel about the character that relates to my message, and is followed
by a paragraph describing the characters role in the novel to show the readers how these
characters used art to help themselves in the novel. The paragraphs were created in a way to
show that these four characters are relatable to people in the real world. I believe the creation of
these pages about the characters help my audience gain interest to Station Eleven. Overall, the
website was designed to be simple for easier use, but effective in generating great appeal to my
intended audience.
The website was carefully designed with the help of Aristotles rhetorical situations:
ethos, logos, and pathos. To show my credibility or establish my ethos, I had to show on my
website that I have great understanding of the pieces I am using throughout my website. As
mentioned, the website contains a summary of Station Eleven, and accurate descriptions of
important characters in the novel. This technique shows my audience that I have great
understanding and interest for the ideas in the novel. To establish my logos, the website also
contains direct quotes from Station Eleven that are all about the main characters I mentioned on
the website that serves my purpose and message. The use of direct quotes in the website gives
my audience a sneak preview of the novel, and the idea of how each character used art to reflect
in the novel. I wanted my audience to witness the ability of art of helping any type of person
reflect about themselves. Mandels relatable characters in the novel made my website better
because it creates a deep connection between her characters and my audience. Also, these
characters and their actions throughout the novel supports the message I wanted to evoke in my
project. Finally, I used visual and auditory techniques to connect with my audience emotionally,

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and establish my pathos. For my visual component, I used active images as my background with
the first page showing a busy world where everything continues to flow while the clock keeps
moving. Also, I included word transitions and specific color schemes to connect well with the
post-apocalyptic genre and capture the attention of my intended audience. For my auditory
component, the website welcomes its user with the clock ticking, and continues with calm and
soothing piano music to generate mixed emotions for my audience so that they can engage with
my website. I wanted my website to be viewed as a space to replace the clock-ticking a
stressed person has in their life with calm music to reflect upon. Through multiple drafts, I used
Aristotles rhetorical situations as a guide to create and edit the components of my RIP project.
In conclusion, my rhetorical project shows the importance of art and literature in helping
people in our technological era. Creating the website was quite a process, but was doable in the
given time. If balancing classes werent an issue, I believe the website can be improved by
creating an interactive application on the website that covers my message, and creates a strong
appeal for my audience. Nevertheless, it was fun to create a website with great appeal to my
intended audience. I am proud of the website I created, and loved the rhetorical techniques that
built it the way it is.

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Works Cited
Anderson, Monica. "Technology Device Ownership: 2015." Pew Research Center: Internet,
Science & Tech. N.p., 2015. Web. 28 Nov. 2016.
Ellis, Tagert, and Kat Lewin. The Anteaters Guide to Writing and Rhetoric. 5th ed.
Plymouth, MI: Hayden-McNeil, 2016. Print.
Mandel, Emily St. John. Station Eleven: A Novel. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2015. Print.
Metla, Valeriya. "School Art Programs: Should They Be Saved? - Law Street (TM)." Law Street
(TM). N.p., 2016. Web. 28 Nov. 2016.
Nilles, Melissa. "Technology Is Destroying the Quality of Human Interaction | The Bottom
Line." The Bottom Line. N.p., 2012. Web. 28 Nov. 2016.