At the beginning of this semester I was lost and confused. I didn’t know what to expect out of this class. I remember walking into the classroom on the first day of class that Monday morning in February. I felt out of place and anxious because I was only one of two boys in the whole class. To go along with that, I didn’t even realize what I signed up for. All I knew was that I was taking an English class for a general education credit. I had no idea which one I picked. Furthermore, I knew this class would be a struggle for me because I didn’t really like discussion-based classes and I was a really poor writer to begin with. English was always something that I struggled with throughout high school. I could only hope for the best.
I was a little skeptical at first about what we were supposed to learn in the class and get out of it. I wasn’t sure what rhetoric meant and I felt lost with a lot of the concepts we were learning at first. For example, I had no idea what orientalism was; I barely even knew that word existed. But, I think the part that was really the breaking point for me in the class was when I set up a meeting with Savy at Starbucks. Originally, this meeting was only supposed to be about my student led discussion, but I took a lot more out of it then she thought. This meeting made me feel a lot more comfortable with the class and was sort of a turning point for me in the semester. I understood what she expected out of me and I felt a boost of confidence. Throughout the semester I grew more and more comfortable in the class and after a while I started to enjoy the assignments we did. I started to realize a real difference in my writing and I had fun with some of the concepts we learned throughout.
The part of the class that really helped me develop as a writer was the discussion and blog posts we did every night for homework. These discussion questions acted as great opportunity to share my own thoughts on different concepts and topics we learned in the class. I was able to reflect on the readings and this repetition of the discussions made me into a more well-rounded writer. I became more descriptive and thoughtful in my writing. I also took more time and went in depth with my discussion and blog posts without rambling on. These short assignments proved more beneficial to me then longer assignment in the class. This is because I wasn’t forcing more words out of my writing to meet a certain word count. I thoroughly enjoyed writing discussion posts and sharing my opinion on many concepts and topics.
As I said in the beginning of this post, I had no idea of what rhetoric meant. It sounded fancy and foreign to me. Having so much practice with rhetoric, I learned that it is any language that is meant to have a persuasive effect on its audience. In simpler terms, rhetoric is any form of persuasive text. Throughout the semester I liked to think I showed rhetoric in many of my small and big writing assignments. Rhetoric is very important in good writing.
I think the most challenging part of this class was speaking up during class discussions. For me, it was hard because I am more on the shy side, so I don’t like to be the center of attention. I also didn’t know if my opinion on something was wrong or stupid. There were many times throughout the class where I wanted to say something, but I wasn’t sure if it would make sense. I also think that class online didn’t help with that because I was behind a screen and really didn’t have any motivation to speak. I would’ve felt more obligated to speak up if we were physically in class.
I think it is important to read, write and think rhetorically in today’s world because it makes you smarter and think more. Society today is on their phone 24/7 scrolling through social media and having opinions on there. It is not making us any smarter doing that. Reading and writing is a lost art to me, and it is very important for the world to start realizing that.
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