Throughout this semester, Professor Shearer has introduced many attributes that go into reading and writing for English. Overall, they help with one’s understanding of the language and good study habits that support us students, whether it is practicing our grammar in writing, to more direct approaches like speaking in front of the entire class. I’ve really enjoyed taking this class and it is mostly because of how nicely the professor handles it, mostly putting the students first and always being considerate. 

Towards the beginning of this semester, we were learning about the situation we can describe in order to understand more about the context of a text known as rhetorical situations. We started reading articles and identifying which rhetorical strategies were used, this helped me understand which strategy means what and how they can be used. I’ve leaned towards the logos strategy in most of my essays – and especially my research essay, where logistics and hard facts are used to support the argument. In my Phase 3 essay, many articles were sourced and almost all of them contained cold, hard facts that support my argument about abortion laws. For my Phase 2 essay, I leaned more towards the pathos aspect where I tried convincing the reader to feel bad about the consequences of banning abortion.

The constant workshops in class where students go over each other’s work before submitting them are very appreciated and helpful. Spotting possible mistakes or just learning what good examples are is very helpful and helps students with their summarizing skills. This allows students to develop more reading skills and strategies for revising and editing. Looking through other people’s work, studying their writing techniques or just taking examples of what to do and what not to do have always been a great way for me to understand things in general. 

The Phase 1 assignments were the most challenging for me, requiring a personal experience to write about and eventually talking about it in front of the whole class. It really made me think,practice my speech, and confront my nervousness/anxiety when speaking in front of the class. I felt that I didn’t really do well on the speech part, mostly because I was not prepared and thought I could improvise. I got really nervous and tried to maintain my composure but the constant blanking of my mind got the best of me and I ended up ending my speech very early. I personally believe that writing over and over again with direction given by a professor enforces what I already know and pushes my understanding of writing to the next level. The entire class was a bunch of writing, reading, and research which only improved my skills. 

The past couple of essays written for this class have required me to cite and source in a specific format, which helped me develop strategies for writing and researching. I chose to do the MLA format, but I have realized that I do not fully understand how to cite in this style or any other style. Some feedback I have received for Essay 4 was that I need to properly cite my sources and I have yet to learn how to do so. Other than that, I feel like all of the work we have done in class has been good practice towards my writing, reading, analyzing, and, partly, my stage fright. I felt like I had’ve already had a pretty good overall understanding of English and that this course has furthered my understanding of rhetorical analysis.

Citations

Phase 1 Essay: /Speech:https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nWRTlf094-OYkM4Hq1vnMjHqgLQOGCbZ50UeCQ4Odpw/edit?usp=sharing

Phase 3 Essay: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FvAdhTEpdrpuuSm0wgW6evXyAUbP6gnXUs3_FFM2XEA/edit?usp=sharing