Monday, January 16, 2012
Reflecting on Our First Assignment
To start class today, I’d like you to take a few minutes and reflect on what it was like to write your first essay for this class. Describe your writing process and tell the rest of us about how your piece changed from your initial ideas to your final draft. How did our course reading, class discussion, or blogging shape the argument you made about The Laramie Project? What observations or feedback did your peers give you about your draft that helped you as you continued drafting and revising it? Ultimately, what did you learn about rhetoric, persuasive writing, social justice, or yourself by completing this assignment?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
After we had finished watching The Laramie Project, as I was reading the Corder essay, I knew immediately that I wanted to use Corder's main idea to make my argument about the film. In addition, the blogging exercises that we did, helped me to develop my ideas and really think them through. As we entered the peer review workshop, I thought that my rough draft was nearly complete. After the workshop, however, and receiving some constructive criticism from my classmates, there were definitely more than a few things about my paper that I wanted to change. In the end, I think that it helped me create a more solid essay. By using more specific examples from the movie I think I proved my points more effectively. The most important piece of advice that my classmates gave me was to take a few of the quotes out that I used from Corder's article, and to paraphrase them in my own words. This helped me develop my own voice as a writer. In addition, it helped me make my arguments more focused, organized, and concise. Through this first assignment I think I have really implanted in my brain the rhetorical strategies of ethos and pathos. Through hashing out my ideas in the paper, I have come to really understand what these terms mean and how they are used to make arguments more persuasive. I'm glad we watched the Laramie Project because I was completely unaware of the hate crime that was committed against Matthew Shepard. Also, I was unaware of how many states did not have hate crime legislation. One of the most important things that I learned from this assignment is to never assume that your paper is complete. You should remain open to advice from your peers to push your argument even further than you already have.
ReplyDeleteMy writing process followed the normal blue print that I use. I start with a introduction type paragraph and then list the more specific ideas and then write notes highlighting what evidence I will use to support a particular idea or claim. The feed back that I got from the peer review gave me the impression that my ideas were good so I did not try to change them, but I did try to make the point I was trying to make clearer (I skill that I still need much practice with). All of the work that we did surrounding the movie helped me immensely. Blogging and discussing helped me notice things that I had not picked up on in the movie, and gave me points that I used in my essay and the readings gave me material that I used to support arguments that I made in discussions, blogs, and my essay. I learned about how rhetoric can be used in more subtle ways and how even though the rhetoric is not screaming at you it is still powerful.
ReplyDeleteIn the beginning, my ideas on the movie were much more focused around the specific instance in the film. As I progressed, I began to notice more of the implications the movie could have for a global audience. When I began to make this shift, I noticed numerous things about the movie that all seemed like they were independent and had no connecting idea. As I continued to work with the film through our blogging I came to realize the common theme and my paper began to take a real shape. It wasn’t until after our peer edit that I realized that there were parts of my argument that were unnecessary and others that needed to be fleshed out. I had a tendency in my earliest drafts to bring up ideas without explaining their purpose. I also had no real thesis anywhere in the paper until the conclusion which should have only restated the idea. Once I did some rearranging and a little bit of augmenting to my ideas I came up with a paper with a clear focus which I magically managed to put into words in the introduction. I have realized that a hole in my writing is keeping the argument consistently well integrated into the paper as well as keeping the ideas as clear as possible. I will attempt to learn from this for future papers.
ReplyDeleteIn the first essay I wrote for this class, I had to once again find a rhythm while working on my essay. At first I couldn’t get my ideas to flow succinctly. I knew going into my first draft that I would need a lot of editing in order to make my essay polished and refined enough to become a final draft. With that in mind, when I wrote my first draft I focused on gathering evidence to support my argument about rhetorical constraints. Then after peer editing my first draft I returned and edited my paper so my evidence made sense and my evidence was easily explained. Libby and Tyler’s advice really helped me move my essay into a more academic and structured piece, rather than a more personal essay. The reading that helped me shape my essay the most was the Covino and Joliffe piece, which talked about rhetorical constraints. I thought that the Laramie Project was the perfect movie to illustrate how an appeal to rhetorical constraints can make the rhetor’s argument much more persuasive. The Laramie Project shows characters of all different backgrounds and their thoughts on a particular issue. By showing so many different viewpoints there is almost infallibly a character in the movie that any individual can relate with. This makes their ideas much more emotional and appeal.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first started writing the paper, I didn't really have a direction as to where I wanted to go with it. I kind of started off with a sort of random intro that I knew I could connect to my thesis, but I didn't yet know how I would connect it. I was able to connect the intro to the point of my essay without too much trouble, but by the time our first draft was due, I knew I still had to emphasize the direction that I wanted to take the paper. The peer review helped significantly, because it helped me to locate the weak spots in my paper so that I could go back and change them. Also, I knew that I had to add something to the paper, although before the peer editing session I really didn't know what I had to add. However, after the session it was clear what I needed. The main point of my piece needed a little clarification because it still seemed a bit hazy, and because of the peer review I was able to recognize this. Also, I realized, almost too late, that I didn't state my thesis until halfway through the paper. I reorganized a little so that the reader would understand the point that I wanted to make early on.
ReplyDeleteWhen I first looked at the prompt, I had really no idea what I thought the main point was. It took lots of looking over the script of the play and replaying the movie in my head to finally pull out a main argument. I started with the standard outline where I detailed my main paragraphs and this helped immensely when I began writing. The peer review workshop helped me see areas where I could improve and i very much enjoyed hearing my peer's feedback. I am one of those kids that writes a paper then hands it in (for the most part), so the revision process initially seemed tedious. However, I found that it really helped to strengthen my paper and because of the peer and instructor reviews, I was able to really shape my thesis into a stronger and more accurate claim. I certainly think that blogging and the in class discussions helped to shape my essay because they broke the topic down into small pieces. For example, in one of my blog posts I examined audience, which I drew on for my paper. I learned a great deal about persuasive techniques through reading the op-ed pieces, the course readings, and the in-class discussions. Hopefully my writing has already improved and I have certainly acquired knowledge that can help me do so in the future.
ReplyDeleteI initially started writing my paper about the concept of “live and let live” and how it can affect societies in detrimental ways. However as I continued to write I found other interesting ways to shape my argument into something more powerful. For instance, I decided that live and let live was more than simply “You don’t bother me, I don’t bother you.” It was in fact an entire way of not acknowledging the other, or allowing them to interact with you anyway. The class discussions following the end of The Laramie Project are in fact the reason that I decided to examine live and let live. Someone mentioned this idea, and how it seemed to affect the town and I really liked the way the movie absently examined the topic. Discussing my paper with my classmates was very helpful when writing this paper, because they, along with Prof. Bateman, pointed out significant areas that I could work on revising my paper. I took these and rewrote a large portion of my essay, from the thesis, and introduction to the conclusion. I was able to find a more fluid way to insert rhetorical points that I cared about and all in all I was able to make this paper what I wanted it to be. The Laramie Project taught me a great many things about social justice in the American West, and how communities react to horrific crimes. Through this assignment I was really able to examine and understand how the community felt after the death of Matthew Shepard. It was also fascinating to examine how a “harmless” credo and saying could have potentially led to the heinous crime. Additionally, I was able to learn that to be persuasive it is quite often helpful to stray away from the five paragraph tried and true model and actually create an argument in a more natural, less crazily organize form. Finally, I learned about how using all types of rhetoric and persuasive skills, rather than one or two can completely solidify an argument and capture an audience.
ReplyDeleteI approached this essay initially by clarifying what message I though the film was trying to send in a larger sweeping sense. My next step was trying to identify the argumentative instruments in which this argument was conveyed. After identifying audience, ethos, pathos, and kairos, I shaped my body paragraphs around those things. Although my first draft identified these concepts it was really though peer review and Covino’s article that helped me deepen my analysis of the film through each individual aspect of argument. What I focused mostly on with my final draft was more fully explaining these concepts and making sure each was supported with examples from the film. Also in my final draft, I tried to make sure that all of my arguments related directly back to my thesis.
ReplyDeleteIt was hard for me to write this first essay in our class because it’s the first essay I’ve really done since senior year. It was tough to get started so I attempted to write out an outline and then did my first draft. I was not very happy with it. That first draft is what I brought into class for the peer review and although it was okay, it needed much more substance. The peer review helped me gain some ideas for evidence and examples and then for the final draft I practically rearranged the whole paper. I deleted and added new paragraphs, and shifted around my already existing ones. I think it came out a lot better, but it took a lot of time and from now on I know I need have a concrete idea and outline before I start writing my paper. I would say the class readings and discussions helped the most with shaping my essay, not as much the blogging. This assignment did help me learn a lot about rhetoric. I had never heard of the idea before this class, never the words kairos, ethos, pathos and logos, but now I fee like a have a good sense of what they mean.
ReplyDeleteWriting this essay wasn’t much different than any other essay I have written in the past. My writing process was essentially the same as it always has been: I started off by just diving right in and writing my paper then going through and finding things that needed to be modified or changed entirely. My ideas themselves didn’t change too much through the revision process. I kept the same thesis and main arguments from the beginning of my first draft to the submission of my final product. The changes I made were done with the goal of more clearly articulating my thoughts, further explaining my ideas, or providing more supporting evidence. The peer reviews proved to be quite helpful during my revisions. They told me where I needed further expansion or explanation, and I found that their advice was very beneficial to my essay.
ReplyDeleteIn writing this essay I encountered one of the most frequent problems for me in that it was hard for me to decide on a specific topic and structure the piece. HAving the class discussions on the movie and the readings from outside of class really helped stir my brain and helped me come up with a solid topic to write about and find concrete ways in which I could support it and connect back to the readings. My first draft was a straight run through of my ideas, just getting them out in paper in paragraph form and then tweaking them slightly before the peer review session. Reading the paper aloud and getting instant feedback really helped me find the strengths and weaknesses of the paper. Aside from catching the occasional typos, the peer review highlighted points where I could make a stronger point in my paper and even take out or slim down things that were not entirely necessary. This first assignment was a great introduction to rhetoric and social justice, two subjects that I have had no formal education on prior to this class. I think it helped me continue to battle with my troubles of getting started in my writing and made me think about what a good piece would entail.
ReplyDeleteThe moment that I knew what I wanted to write about came from one of our class discussions. In this discussion we were talking about the speech given my Matt's father and the powerful examples of pathos that it portrayed. As soon as I heard this, I knew that I wanted to focus on the individual stories that the characters of the Laramie Project were telling us and the ways that those stories would affect our opinions of them and their values. In writing the paper, I went home and quickly skimmed through the movie once more in order to get a clearer idea of what I wanted to talk about and how I wanted to present it. From there I really just wrote and let my ideas flow onto the paper. It wasn't until I got the feedback from my group that I really started to mature my essay in order to help it grow. The feedback that I received was immensely helpful as my readers helped me to shape my thesis and take out some of the rhetorical fluff that I had packed into the essay in order to give it more credit from our readings. After talking to them they persuaded me to look less at the things that the authors were telling us and to instead focus on the real and gripping story that was being portrayed in the film itself. By looking at the my writing in this way I really feel like I learned the power of rhetoric. In so many examples of previous writing it was always necessary to beef up the credit of the story by using a large amount of authors and block quotes from their work. However, in writing and revising this essay I discovered that the simple aspects of rhetoric are so much more powerful then they are usually given credit for. By looking at the telling examples of pathos and ethos in The Laramie Project I could see the story in the way that the authors intended and I could see the power behind every word spoken in the film.
ReplyDeleteI think my initial writing process began with a blog post we had to do regarding how the Laramie Project displayed a whole community being affected by a singular event. This made me contemplate the power for a singular display of a production to affect a wide range of viewing audiences who were allowed to identify with a variety of the characters included in the film and interviews. Our course readings were helpful for me to flesh out how the writers created a production that had such moving qualities but provided an argument that allowed both sides of the gay rights issue to have a say.
ReplyDeleteDuring the peer review process, I found it very helpful to hear multiple perspectives on my piece, as well as to see others’ and get ideas and possible ways to make my own paper better by spending time critiquing. I think that from start to final copy of my essay, one major thing that I altered was my thesis statement, in that when my peers read my paper they saw that I had made a good argument, but it didn’t really match up with my thesis, and I suppose that can just be a product of the writing process itself. The peer reviewing alos allowed me to see areas where I said something that may have made sense to me but didn’t to someone else, and that made me rethink my argument in some areas and rephrase it, which I believe made me a stronger and more efficient arguer in my writing.
This assignment allowed me to really better understand rhetoric. It was a concept that I was unfamiliar with coming into college, but having to write a paper about the power of rhetoric in a film and consequently have to apply concepts of rhetoric to make my essay effective was a very useful exercise. In terms of learning about social justice and my own beliefs, I think this filmed allowed me to move past the importance of preventing violent crimes for the mere suffering that they cause the victim, and to realize the potential that they have to harm an entire community or people surrounding a crime.
I had some conflicts writing this first essay for this class. My largest problem was that I was disinterested in this piece of work. I usually write the best essays on a topic I don’t care much about because I can look at it extremely objectively and can in turn create a strong, factual argument off of it. However, this topic and the Laramie project, even though it personally appealed to my pathos on some level, I could not force myself to write a cohesive argument on it. This explains why I wrote almost a whole essay prior to the class revision day, and I threw it out and started over. This extremely frustrated me, explaining why I procrastinated so much. Furthermore, in the actually final product, my thesis focused more on the rhetorical make-up of the film and how the readings supported the persuasive power of the presentation itself, rather than parts of the murder of Matthew and the town of Laramie. Once again, this was, and still is very suprising to me as I am usually passionate about topics such as these, and furthermore, regardless or not of my interest and viewpoint, I can compose a cohesive argument in a much less time-consuming manner. My peers gave me a lot of feedback that was very helpful. I liked that they specifically pointed out my strong points in my essay, and even when some of the points were more vague, “like good use of evidence from the reading,” it helped me leave those alone when I revised my essay as a whole. As a whole, this assignment showed me that I am open to learning about topics that I may or may not agree with; however, Some of these I can still write objectively well on, and others, I can still remain objective, but it is more difficult to produce a cohesive and adequate result.
ReplyDeleteWhen I began brainstorming ideas for my essay, I started out by thinking about the parts of the movie that really struck a chord with me and made an impression. I came up with a handful of topics, but the one that I was most interested in, probably because of my background, was how the different religious leaders were portrayed throughout the film. I started out attempting to argue that the writers were saying religion that was centered around acts of love by its leaders was more successful, but then I realized that I would have to define “success of a religion,” which I couldn’t. I ended up saying that the writers of The Laramie Project portrayed religious leaders in different ways to communicate the fact that religious leaders who based their outreach in love and acceptance of people made their message more attractive to their audience. Corder’s piece on argument and rhetoric helped me to formulate this essay because his thoughts on how we see each other in love and how our lives are our own arguments fit right in with my argument and strengthened it. What helped me the most in the peer review session was talking about it as a group, but also getting a letter detailing things in each paragraph that could be fixed or tweaked (or left alone) to make the essay stronger. While writing this essay, I learned that ethos and pathos are very similar to each other. I also realized that it’s important to take a break and then come back to look at my writing with a clean perspective so I can identify areas that need improvement or areas that are solid more clearly.
ReplyDeleteMy writing hatched from the blog post in which I wrote about the ethos of the Tectonic Theater Company. Having a solid rhetorical basis from which to begin shaping my essay, the New York Times op-ed pieces, specifically the one that urged legislative action in response to Matthew Shepard’s murder and other various hate crimes, provided me with the idea that The Laramie Project sought to persuade people that successful action against bigotry and hate started with moving past the passive aggressiveness of tolerance (rather than acceptance).
ReplyDeleteMy peers provided me with very beneficial advice concerning small things such as repetitive word usage to paragraph organization In order to be the most persuasive in rhetorical analysis, one needs to display his or her knowledge of the topic and rhetorical strategies through the analysis of evidence rather than definitions and single-layered examples.
My writing hatched from the blog post in which I wrote about the ethos of the Tectonic Theater Company. Having a solid rhetorical basis from which to begin shaping my essay, the New York Times op-ed pieces, specifically the one that urged legislative action in response to Matthew Shepard’s murder and other various hate crimes, provided me with the idea that The Laramie Project sought to persuade people that successful action against bigotry and hate started with moving past the passive aggressiveness of tolerance (rather than acceptance).
ReplyDeleteMy peers provided me with very beneficial advice concerning small things such as repetitive word usage to paragraph organization In order to be the most persuasive in rhetorical analysis, one needs to display his or her knowledge of the topic and rhetorical strategies through the analysis of evidence rather than definitions and single-layered examples.
I’m a strong believer in a well thought out plan so my paper itself didn’t change much after it was typed. I did revise some parts and did some editing but I stayed with the same concept, however, during the planning phase it changed a lot. I was very unfocused and didn’t really know what to write about. I had several ideas and this made planning very difficult. But after talking to the teacher and become more focused on the movie I was able to easily plan the paper. My argument was about how the movie change the way it depicted the characters by, instead of dehumanizing them, making them human and making the audience feel sympathy towards them during certain scenes. The reading about ones personal narrative and understanding the others point of view really helped me formulate this argument. One of the challenges with the movie was the fact that there were so many characters it was difficult to keep up with the names. So in my paper I would say fore example the doctor. On of the members in my group brought this to my attention because although I’m arguing about how the movie tries to restore the humanity to the attackers, I as the writer am taking away the humanity from the characters by not stating their name. I just thought that was a very good point. Ultimately, I learned that I truly do benefit from reading my writing out loud. When I would read I caught many mistakes that I did not notice reading to myself. These mistakes were not just grammar but they were more stylistic mistakes or phrases that just sounded awkward. Overall, I would nice to get constructive criticism from my peers.
ReplyDelete