Coming into the Spring 2022 semester, I was fresh off a gap year and hadn’t had proper education for over 2 years, as the pandemic abruptly halted my senior year of highschool. Therefore, I didn’t know what to expect because I also knew that college was very different from highschool. When I realized that I had to take an English course for my very first semester, I was excited because I do enjoy writing to an extent and wanted to develop my language and writing skills, but I honestly questioned how much this course would improve my writing. Meeting the class for the first time and Ms. Crowe was a unique experience in that, this was my first in person class in what felt like ages and because Ms. Crowe seemed a bit nervous, just like the rest of us, which offered some type of comfort. As the course went on, I felt myself slowly starting to be engaged in the material that we had to read and began to use the tools that we had learned in class in my writing. Essentially, this led to me improving the structuring of my writing, learning key terms, and reading interesting pieces. 

At the beginning of Phase 1 of the course, I understood the prompt, to describe an event or a reason as to why the way you speak and write. To be honest, I know myself pretty well, so it wasn’t hard to think of situations that really shaped my language, so I really didn’t think about the assignment or the question too deeply. My very first draft had a couple of stories that I thought had accurately described my language and I thought that I knew my target audience was the class, specifically anyone who had a similar situation. It wasn’t until one day in class when we had to share our story among our peers that I got some very insightful feedback from a few of my classmates. I was told to explain the shock of moving to a place so foreign to me and also, most importantly, how the situations in my story shaped my identity. Now I was in a place where I really cared about this assignment because not only was I explaining how my vernacular came to be but also a major part of my identity. This allowed me to think deeper about the prompt and now I was also writing this assignment intentionally for the class, but mainly for myself now, as I felt I had to give an authentic story. 

Some of the rhetoric concepts that have affected my writing, in particular, have been the usage of purpose, context, as well as ETHOS, PATHOS, and LOGOS. As I mentioned previously, I didn’t really give much purpose to this assignment as I should have in the beginning but once I received that feedback that day, it really helped me to continue my narrative and give me a stronger sense of what I was writing. Without major context, in the form of stories, in this written narrative, no one would really understand the dramatic situations that molded my speech. Without providing key details that could give you a picture of what happened, my written narrative would be incomplete, so therefore context played a major role in this phase. I discovered the meaning behind ETHOS, PATHOS, and LOGOS, this semester and it has changed my writing thus far. I used ETHOS in my writing by providing actual stories that happened to me, giving me credibility, and LOGOS, where I targeted emotions by including specific details.

This phase of the course has already helped me to complete some of the Course Outline Goals. For example, the first goal is to “Recognize the role of language in empowering, oppressing, and hierarchizing languages and their users, and be open to communicating across different languages and cultures.” Stories like “Nobody Mean More to Me Than You,” by June Jordan, helped me in the sense that she supported speaking naturally and that it shouldn’t be seen as inferior, which helped me write my narrative. Goal number 6, “Engage in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes,” is something I feel I accomplished as well because the insightful feedback that my peers gave me really helped me along my journey on writing this. 

During Phase 2 of the course, we had to choose an article, video, or some sort of media and analyze the text rhetorically. The environment is something I actually care about and I have prior experience scuba diving, so I have a real passion for the oceans. Therefore, I decided to choose a topic that is current, climate change, specifically how the Australian government recently funded 1 billion dollars to help conserve the Great Barrier Reef. Now the point of this phase was to analyze texts for rhetorical devices so, therefore, there is not much of an audience for this essay but this phase did help me personally.

Prior to this class, I never knew the term rhetoric or rhetorical devices. Hence, this phase of the course helped me to achieve Course Learning Outcome number 5, “Recognize and practice key rhetorical terms and strategies when engaged in writing situations.” I always knew there were certain styles people wrote or there were certain devices that writers use to appeal to their audience, I just never knew they had a definitive name. For example, I discovered the meaning behind ETHOS, PATHOS, and LOGOS this semester and they are just broad terms that are used when a writer is trying to convey credibility, logic, or emotion. There are other rhetorical devices such as dramatization, purpose, or even imagery, and getting to know these terms really helped me establish how writers reach their audience. 

Not only did learning and practicing rhetorical devices help me analyze other people’s text, but it also helped with my own writing. Now knowing the proper terms and ways how to use rhetorical devices, I was able to incorporate them into my own text. I know there are key moments when you should try to target emotion and there are others you have to show credibility. Also, I have started to include more character, context, and dramatization in my own writing because I know it engages my audience more and it makes for a better story to tell.  

For the last Phase of this course, we had to write a Research Paper on specific prompts, and one of them happened to be about climate change. As a disclaimer, I didn’t mean to write two essays back to back on climate change but I am passionate about the topic, so it worked out. With that said, my intended audience for this essay would be to anyone who can read, because in my honest opinion I feel as if everyone should know the information that I included in my essay. More specifically, I would like to target those who are skeptical of climate change or just do not care enough about it to make changes in their daily lives. I tried to target this audience by using a lot of LOGOS, or appealing to logic and reasoning. Afterall, it was a research paper so I tried to include the most relevant information to support what I was saying. I also tried to appeal to PATHOS, by casting doubt on our future and stating some of the things we can collectively do, in order to hopefully get the audience to care more about the planet we live on. 

I honestly learned a lot of information writing this essay, more so than any other essay in the past. I learned how much warmer it has gotten since the industrial revolution, how biodiversity affects human health, or even some of the technologies being developed in order to help the fight against climate change. Not only did I learn information on this specific topic, I learned how to attempt to connect to the audience more and get them to feel passionate about climate change. The purpose of this essay really helped me because I, myself, am passionate about this world and would like to see it thrive for as long as it can. 

This phase of the course helped me to achieve Course Learning Outcomes, 8 and 9, which are “Locate research sources (including academic journal articles, magazine and newspaper articles) in the library’s databases or archives and on the Internet and evaluate them for credibility, accuracy, timeliness, and bias” and “Compose texts that integrate your stance (i.e. you thesis) with appropriate sources using strategies such as summary, critical analysis, interpretation, synthesis, and argumentation.” Locating good resourceful information was key in order to write this essay because I wanted to make sure I had correct information and that it added valuable information to my essay. Involving these sources in my essay, using synthesis, helped me as well to add credibility to what I was quoting and to the overall validity of the essay. 

Overall, throughout the 3 phases, I learned so much and I believe that I did improve my writing. Whether if it was from learning how to sift through academic articles, or learning key terms, or even just reading engaging articles, I really enjoyed the course and Ms. Crowe did all that she could in order for us to produce our best writing. I will always acknowledge the valuable information that I learned through this course and continue to develop my writing based on the feedback and knowledge I’ve gained.