In one’s own thought process, and writing, there will always be an underlying rhetorical strategy that drives the argument of the composer. Whether it be the way the author speaks about a subject or shies away from other arguments of the topic, a writer always has a purpose in their methods in order to communicate their idea effectively. This is only a natural human trait that occurs into almost anything one does while addressing an audience. In my case, I will be reflecting and analyzing my own assignment three essay entitled, The Solution to Homelessness: A Joint Responsibility, which speaks upon the problematic manner in which society talks about homelessness. In this essay, I use my own rhetoric to persuade my audience that the answer to ending homelessness is their participation in solving the problem as well as I use my writing to inspire my reader to become involved in order to resolve the issue.
I didn’t understand how to explain whom the rhetorical devices targeted and how they explain the author’s purpose. I was able to understand this concept when I was in class and my professor explained it in great detail. I was able to look at an example and see just what the author intended to say. The multitude of writing critiques also helped me understand my shortcomings in English 1301. There is a lot more work to fully analyzing a text and I will still need help in the future to make sure I have analyzed the texted completely.
The Synopsis that I gathered from Haas and Flowers’ “Rhetorical Reading Strategies and the Construction of Meaning” was none the less another interesting read. Experienced readers might come to understand that both reading and writing can be “context-rich, situational, and have constructive acts”. Though a large number of students may find reading and writing more or less to be an exchange of valued or non-valued information. Continuing on, multiple studies that have been conducted have also found that on average 77 percent of experienced readers tend to use content strategies to expand their knowledge of the reading. These strategies usually include vigorous annotations of the reading/writing that have been shown to improve the readers/writers’ comprehension of the material.
My definition of rhetoric before the readings was simply: successful written or oral communication with a clear purpose & audience in mind. After completing the readings, I have decided that is not specific enough and does not encompass what rhetoric really is. The readings by Crusus, Channell, and Drucker helped establish a clear relationship between argument, “mature reasoning”, and communication as a mode used to communicate. Both of the readings provided a clearer understanding of argument and communication, key components to rhetoric, but did not change my definition until I read “The Rhetorical Situation” by Bitzer. The idea of a rhetorical situation, provided a clear application of the question: “What is rhetoric?”
The piece of writing which I felt was unsuccessful for me was the Rhetorical Analysis of an article relating to a topic from our course book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander. This piece of writing was difficult for me to organize my ideas around. The article that I decided to use for my rhetorical analysis highlighted mass incarceration among African American and the effect of civil liberties being are taken away from these individuals. I had a lot of repetition because many of the examples I used demonstrated more than one type of appeal. I found myself repeating what the purpose of the example was and how it demonstrated proper use of ethos, pathos, and logos.
Rabinson Shrestha Professor Kashmar ENG 1301 September 25, 2016 Homeless on Campus In the article Homeless on Campus, author Eleanor J. Bader explains how hard the life of a homeless college student is and argues how the colleges are not doing enough to help those homeless students. She gives examples of various homeless college students to support her argument. She also gives examples on how we as an individual or as a group can help those students in need. Bader starts her article by talking about Aesha, a 20-year old student and a mother of a child.
Rhetoric is an invaluable tool that writers can use to enhance their work. With this in mind, it is important when conducting research to be aware of the rhetorical devices an author may be using and how they effect a person’s research. Recent research on learning styles has turned out a wide range of facts, figures, and statistics. By studying rhetoric, a researcher can better identify a biased source. Over the past several decades, awareness of the three learning styles has grown significantly.
From my experiences, one of the example that I use rhetorical analysis is that I grabbed my box of Cheerios and noticed something I never picked up on before. The box said, "Love your heart so you can....do what you love." This stunned me because I realized that the box was subconsciously telling me that I love to eat Cheerios (which I do) and simultaneously telling me that they are good for my heart so I should eat
Rhetoric is a tool students use to learn and analyse the reading more in depth. Rhetoric has many different sections to successfully use rhetoric, for an example there is the rhetorical triangle, the appeals, content and the intention. The rhetorical triangle is used to help the understand of the reading. The triangle has three sections: speaker, audience and the subject. The speaker is known as the persona, which means the character the speaker creates.
Homelessness, while widely acknowledged, continues to be an ever-prevalent issue within society. This urged me to take action. In order to compromise an accurate, precise claim, I needed to heavily research and analyze the various aspects of this issue -- specifically regarding the causes of homelessness, addressing the stereotypes and stigmas surrounding it, and by finding solutions at a personal, local, and national level. Initially, I intended to include pathos as a primary theme throughout my sources, but I eventually found logos as a more prevalent, more central theme that appeared throughout each source. Presented primarily through statistics, logos stands as the central theme.
I quickly learned that rhetorical analysis required some unique critical thinking, different from an analysis of a pie chart or a position versus time graph. Rhetorical analysis did not require a single, definite answer; these essays often possessed a myriad of correct answers. I figured out that I needed to be open minded and impartial in order to view a piece of written work as a whole to see all the possibilities and applications of rhetoric. I also realized becoming more observant and scrutinizing every single, minute detail helped expand the extent of my
Audience: People ignorant about the struggles of homelessness and would rather make homeless people “disappear” than help them Message/Goal of this piece: Addressing the issue of homelessness and raising awareness to this program as an alternative to making it a crime to be living in poverty. It shows that chromic homelessness can be solved Behaviors/ Aspects of society being satirized: The treatment and attitude towards homelessness and homeless people e.g. banning, arresting, and giving them fines. This piece shows the ridiculousness of the anti-homeless argument and that they are lazy moochers undeserving of help. People who would rather spend to criminalize homelessness than use the same time/money/resources to help fix this problem Background
My Writing Experience In previous courses, my writing skills have been mediocre or just enough to pass the class. Throughout the duration of this course, I have written a variety of papers using different techniques and skills. Previously I would write assuming that the only audience would be my instructor. This course has helped me realize that there are many steps and skills involved with writing a well-organized and easy to comprehend essay.
Writing essays and other types of posts has always been difficult for me. But, throughout this composition class, I have learned many interesting and new things about the different types of writing styles. When starting this class, I considered myself to be an average writer with run-of-the-mill vocabulary, ordinary sentence structure and typical finished products. This class has helped me greatly improve my writing skills in a variety of ways. I have learned multiple things by taking this class, such as new ways to approach writing and that there is much that I still need to learn about composition.
The University of Alabama’s graduate program in Composition and Rhetoric would allow me to reach my goals in becoming an English teacher within the community college system. As a non-traditional student my journey to higher education started at a community college. I quickly noticed that where college students in that system struggled the most was when it came to their skills in writing. The students lacked any direction or foundation on how to write properly and effectively. Because of this deficit in their skill set