Upon
registering for English 101H, I felt as if English held no new lessons for me.
I felt that years of public schooling had prepared me for anything that college
level honors English could throw at me. I admit it. I was absolutely wrong. My
recent eight weeks of study in English 101H has taught me more than I thought
possible for such duration. I have been surprised to learn lessons that one
would think to be essential, yet they had not been revealed to me until this
point in my life. I have learned lessons such as proper MLA format
documentation and how to properly create and analyze visual and written
rhetoric with ethical, emotional, and logical appeals. I have also learned the
elements of fiction and plot. Although, the most important lesson I have
learned is the proper writing process. Due to the various assignments and
writing exercises required by English 101H, I have developed a more
comprehensive knowledge and understanding of literacy that I will cherish for
the rest of my days.
The
first week of this course was like a bomb being dropped in my lap. Although I
approached my first mini-composition assignment with confidence, I was
disappointed to find that I had thoroughly failed the objectives of creating a
paper free of grammatical, typographical, and punctuation errors.
“This
is going to be harder than I thought,” I said to myself. Although
disappointing, that assignment allowed me the opportunity to reopen my mind and
reform my knowledge of literacy. I became determined to diligently study all
provided materials in order to accomplish such a task. I approached my first
writing process assignment with caution. I studied the writing process in my
textbook and was appalled to find that I had been composing texts improperly
for years. The method I had been using was the literary equivalent of trying to
find a needle in a haystack. I learned the writing process consists of
developing a thesis statement, drafting, revising, editing, and publication. To
me, the most crucial of these steps is the development of a thesis statement. I
had been writing for years, but without intentionally developing a thesis
statement, my work was always hit or miss with no real formula. No successful
paper is complete without a proper thesis statement. Without a thesis statement, any text will have little
direction, if any, as well as weakened impact upon a reader.
Next,
I studied logical, emotional, and ethical appeals, namely logos, pathos, and
ethos. I was amazing to finally discover the terminology for the rhetorical
devices used so effectively to sell me products and ideas all of these years. Several
of my assignments focused on identifying these appeals. I have included two of
them, Political Cartoon Rhetorical Analysis and McDonalds.com Rhetorical Analysis
in my final portfolio.
I
learned Freytag’s Triangle, or the plot structure, and all of the elements of
fiction and literary terms. I read Cornelia Walker Bailey and Christena
Bledsoe’s God, Dr. Buzzard and the Bolito
Man: A Saltwater Geechee Talks About Life on Sapelo Island, Georgia. In
this novel I studied the elements of plot and noted instances of foreshadowing,
symbolism, the man versus society conflict, as well as many others. My lessons
formally introduced me to the protagonist, or main character, and antagonist,
or the character or entity that opposes the main character. The main focus in
reading Bailey and Bledsoe’s novel was the identification of the theme. Bailey
had a unique theme. Her theme was her own desire to preserve the Geechee
culture through storytelling in her novel.
The
first assignment that I have included in my portfolio, entitled A Fictional Interview of Cornelia Walker
Bailey, is
one in which I was asked to complete a creative project based on this novel. I
chose to create a fictional interview between Cornelia Walker Bailey and myself
ten years from the publication of her novel. In the fictional interview I am a
reporter from People Magazine that is the first to speak to her since her
novel’s inception. The project was a delight, offering an outlet for my
creative writing. The writing of this text proved rather effortless, as I had
studied Bailey’s novel in depth. The ideas I created for her surroundings and
the interview questions and replies came forth easily. I had studied her
diction so well that I had a fairly accurate idea of how she would answer each
question. It was interesting to be able to tie up loose end from her novel. In
reality, situations do not always end neatly, but I felt Bailey had luck on her
side. I helped answer some questions readers may have about her novel, and gave
her desirable outcomes.
The second assignment I submitted,
entitled Political Cartoon Rhetorical
Analysis, is the rhetorical analysis of a political cartoon by Drew
Sheneman. I would never have believed that almost two pages could be written
about a one frame, political cartoon, but I proved myself wrong yet again. The
cartoon focused on the recent BP oil spill crisis. I analyzed each of the
rhetorical elements Sheneman used in conveying his opinion of the crisis. I
delved in depth into the pathos used in the meager two lines of dialogue all
the way to the manner in which the characters’ facial expressions and the
manner in which they are dressed. The complexities of rhetoric often amaze me.
So much is happening to persuade us of this or that, that we often do not
realize it. Rhetoric, when undefined, becomes a seemingly white noise in our day-to-day
lives.
Speaking of white noise, rhetoric is
the cornerstone of advertising. In my third submitted assignment, entitled McDonalds.com Rhetorical Analysis, I
analyze the effectiveness of the rhetoric used on McDonalds.com and McDonald’s use of pathos, logos, and ethos to
influence a reader’s perception of their sub-par foods. Often McDonald’s
creates an image of delicious, picturesque, healthy foods, but this is not the
case. Ultimately, McDonald’s relies heavily on pathos and visual rhetoric, but
there is some use of ethos and logos. I was extremely pleased with my progress
when initially receiving my graded paper. This assignment was noted to have
been one of the more troublesome for past students, but I received high marks. It
was invigorating to know that my literacy skills were improving, and that my
fears of inadequacy in literacy were unsubstantiated. I can now effectively
analyze rhetoric when present, even in verbal arguments.
The fourth assignment I submitted in my
portfolio is a theme exploration of Edgar Allan Poe’s classic The Cask of Amontillado. I had always admired
this particular short story. In general, short stories are a fun read, as the
author must convey a proper theme in very little wordage. Poe’s theme is the
depravity of human nature when uninhibited as well as the fallacies of wrath,
gluttony, and pride. This is quite a powerful theme to pack into such a short
story, but Poe was a masterful writer. He relies heavily on symbolism, but I
believe this is to save space, prevent wordiness, and to create a mysterious
and gothic tone. It was a pleasure to have the opportunity to analyze such a
great author’s theme.
The fifth assignment submitted in my
portfolio, entitled Literacy Is Super,
was actually one of the first submitted for this course. It is an important one
to me, as it was written in first-person perspective, and focused on my own
history with literacy. I discuss a beautiful sunny day in my childhood wherein
I began to take a real interest in literacy for the first time. My love of
comic books eventually blossomed into a love of reading in all mediums, from
novel to magazine, to web. It wasn’t until this particular assignment that I
learned I had been writing dialogue improperly. I had never noticed it, but any
written dialogue begins an entirely new paragraph. What a surprise this was to
me! I began searching through my books, and realized my instructor, Professor
Brand, was absolutely correct. It is improper to place lines of dialogue spoken
by different characters anywhere but at the start of their own paragraph. Also,
in this particular assignment, I began to really emphasize details to give my
reader a heightened perception of events and scenery. It is important to act as
the senses for the reader, and I tried to encompass the smells, sights,
textures and sounds of that day.
Overall, my experience in English 101H
has been a gratifying one. It is as if a whole new world of literacy has been
opened up to me. My new lessons have shown me the error of closed mindedness
and allowed me to reap the benefits of an open mind, hard work, and rigorous
study. English is more than a written means of communication. English is an art
form as well as a precise science.
