Upon reflecting on the rhetorical pieces of writing I completed this semester, I have gathered a better understanding of the meaning and applications of rhetoric, adopted mechanisms to enhance the process of writing and revising, improved my ability to effectively support my claims from scholarly sources and properly cite their ideas, and work with multimedia.
I would like to note that there are revisions added to the research paper that have not yet been evaluated and the counterargument of my rhetorical analysis has also been revised.
How does this portfolio demonstrate my understanding of rhetoric, ethics, and argumentation? Where does this portfolio demonstrate my ability to identify and analyze rhetorical concepts? Where are the principles of rhetoric and argumentation most evident in my writing? How does this portfolio demonstrate my awareness of audience and context? Of rhetorical situations? Of persuasive appeals? Of the ethics of listening and responding?
Per the name of the course, Writing and Rhetoric, it is natural I developed an in-depth understanding of the term rhetoric and its applications to writing. However, I entered this class not knowing the true definition of the word rhetoric. This issue was resolved through the reading assigned on the very first day which was The University Writing Program’s article titled What We Teach which states that rhetoric is defined as “the art, practice and study of human communication” (Lunsford).
My ability to analyze specific rhetorical concepts is best exemplified in my rhetorical analysis. I apply many concepts discussed in the Rhetoric of the Frame: Revisioning Archival Photographs in the Civil War by Judith Lancioni. A specific example is when I explain that a scene in Moonlight is created with “slow panning and tilt shots” which are “used to build suspense” and “create a visual rhythm” (Lancioni 109). I then argue that these camera techniques portray the development of intimacy between the main character Chiron, and his friend Juan. Throughout the entirety of the essay, I support my claims with evidence from scholars or rhetoricians, including James Herrick, Marita Sturken, and Lisa Cartwright. By developing the skills to carefully select ideas from relevant articles, my rhetorical analysis convinces readers to accept my thesis. I also think these pieces of evidence serve as persuasive appeals to my readers. By introducing the definition of rhetoric and establishing the credibility of the authors, I build ethos, or credibility, with my readers. For example, I write that “many filming techniques are explained by Judith Lancioni, a well-established rhetorician. She talks about ‘visual rhythms,’ which are produced by a repetition of shot sequences to “reinforce a claim”(109). This and other camera techniques will be explained to explore how the filmers of Moonlight portray the development of intimacy in Chiron’s life” (Cox Rhetorical Analysis). This serves as a persuasive appeal to my readers and references my central claim.
Additionally, the rhetorical analysis required thorough examination and integration of rhetorical concepts, which led me to a greater understanding of rhetoric itself. This knowledge then translated into the creation of the research paper.
The introduction of my research paper is a sincere anecdote of my personal experience as a Notre Dame Catholic student. I chose to begin my research paper this way because in the book The History and Theory of Rhetoric: An Overview of Rhetoric the author warns readers that rhetoric is often associated with “deception” (Herrick 1). By making a conscious effort to establish a platform of authenticity with my audience, I gained ethos with my readers. This credibility is continually built by critically selecting pieces of evidence that show why Catholics are not actively advocating for immigrants and explanations for this trend. I analyze these pieces of research to highlight the problem, and then I respond to this evidence with my own rhetoric, or argument. For example, I present a study that found that only 29% of Catholics were hearing messages related to immigration in their place of worship (Nteta and Wallsten 900). I then argue that this piece of evidence “highlights a greater need for Catholics to hear messages of immigration advocacy in Mass” (Cox Research Paper). By using my knowledge that ‘rhetoric tests ideas,’ I suggest to my audience that “Catholic students should attend Masses presided by Father Joe Corpora in Dillon or Father Matthew Kuczora in Dunne” to hear messages of immigration advocacy in the homily so they will be influenced to aid immigrants (Herrick 16) (Cox Research Paper). This idea is followed by ‘rhetoric that builds community’ because I suggest solidarity as a key component to counteracting the trend of Catholics not advocating for immigrants on this campus (Herrick 22)(Cox Research Paper). Thus, I employ multiple principles of rhetoric to enhance the persuasive appeals of my research paper.
Equally important to applying the principles of rhetoric is recognizing the audience and context of my research paper. In my research paper, I present quotes from an interview with Father Joe Corpora. His thoughts enhance my argument and allow me to better connect with my audience because of his personal interaction with many Notre Dame Catholic students. In order to address the context of immigration, I state the importance of Catholic students supporting DACA students, and explain the DACA program within the discussion of ‘solidarity’ on the Notre Dame campus. This applies the context of the United States political situation because DACA is an executive order currently under debate in the Trump administration. Moreover, audience and context are crucial to all my rhetorical pieces created throughout the semester. In the case of the narrative, the context is personal, so the assignment requires a more personal style of writing to showcase my voice. As discussed, both context and audience play a role in the rhetorical situation.
Lastly, listening is a crucial component of the class discussions, and I portrayed that skill in my participation. If I was not talking, I represented my participation in class by nodding and internalizing the comments of my peers. It is ethically important to internalize the comments of my peers because it shows my respect for their ideas. In regards to my Ted Talk, it is a response to the lack of Catholics, including those at Notre Dame, failing to actively advocate for immigrants. To ethically craft my response, I displayed the ‘rhetorical virtue’ of honesty and admitted to the audience that I did not attend mass for four years.
As illustrated, throughout the course of the semester I gained an in-depth understanding of rhetoric, rhetorical principles, their applications, and skills to employ persuasive appeals in accordance with an audience and the context of the assignment.
How does this portfolio demonstrate my understanding of writing as a process? Where are my process-oriented composition skills evident? To what extent has my writing process evolved throughout the term, and how is that evolution reflected in this portfolio?
Each assignment had its own type of brainstorm process, initial outline, and multiple drafts to create the final essays seen in this portfolio.
The process of writing the narrative began with a brainstorm guided by Dr. McLaughlin and led me to write about one of my experiences from being in the Spanish Dual Language program. Then, we were assigned with homework to do a “free write” for 20 minutes about the setting, main character, points in time, conflict/tension, and why it matters. As one can see, the writing has numerous typos, but allowing myself to write freely allowed me to produce many ideas, and I learned the value of initial brainstorms and free writing. Additionally, learning to accept constructive criticism was key in allowing me to take advantage of the writing center and peer review sessions for future papers, while also evolving a peer editor myself.
The process of creating my rhetorical analysis shows a significant stride in my writing process. When writing, I always complete outlines. However, in this case, I realized it would be more beneficial to begin writing the paper because I was fixating on trying to think of an exact counterargument. By writing a portion of my essay, I saw with greater clarity the direction my paper was going, which directed me to craft a stronger counterargument than I could have anticipated. That marked a point of evolution in my writing process because I recognized when I needed to make a change in my process. Once I completed a thorough draft, I completed several revisions where I was incredibly nit-picky about transition sentences and sentence structure. Thus, my process for this paper is marked by decisions that allowed me to be efficient, while also being precise in subgoals that allowed me to create a paper I felt pride in submitting.
Moving forward, the research paper initially caused me anxiety because I did not have a positive past experience with this type of paper. But, Dr. McLaughlin’s guided steps made it a painless process. The initial brainstorm, the proposal, and the annotated bibliography were key components to this process. By completing each of those assignments to the best of my ability, I saw the benefits of following this process-oriented style because it formed parts of my paper early on, thus reducing my stress towards this assignment. Moreover, Kellen’s peer editing letter revealed that I needed to better incorporate class material and decrease repetition. This process also contributed to the creation of the Ted Talk since I presented my research results. During the practice, I noticed that my were hands were uncontrollably shaking and my mind went into auto-pilot. But by practicing the speech numerous times, and focusing on the process, I produced a speech spoken from the heart, rather than from memorization. Another part of this process included finding images available for re-use, properly attributing, and formatting each slide to create aesthetically pleasing slides. While time-consuming, all the steps were important in presenting a successful presentation.
Overall, writing is a process that requires patience and perseverance. Completing subgoals such as outlines and accepting constructive feedback from peers and writing center tutors all form part of the processes that created this final portfolio.
Discuss any revisions I’ve made, especially revisions Dr.McLaughlin has not yet seen, and describe how I see those revisions improving the essay.
In regards to the revisions for the rhetorical analysis, I learned through the thorough comments of Dr. McLaughlin that I needed to discuss the available means of persuasion within the movie Moonlight and the performance SSS. This is seen in the sentence I added that states, “while the framework immerses viewers in Chiron’s life and clearly highlights the movie’s themes, the film is limited in that it is not a live performance. This reminds movie watchers that they are interacting with a constructed storyline, limiting their ability to experience real human vulnerability” (Cox Rhetorical Analysis). Here, I present my readers with the limitation of the film and then follow that statement with a discussion of the means of persuasion within SSS. Additionally, I strengthened my counter argument by emphasizing that Kevin’s transformation in the film proves that all people will eventually desire intimacy. Since that first revision, I have tried to better discuss how modern teenagers illustrate that intimacy is not a universal struggle.
Additionally, I revised the research paper and realized I needed to reshape the structure of my arguments. It made more sense to make my ‘background information’ section the paragraphs that presented the Catholic Church’s stance on immigration. That created a better basis for my readers to move into the evidence I added that proves Catholics are not actively advocating for immigrants. Then, I discussed political rhetoric in the context of current immigration policies and explained that Notre Dame students need to be aware of DACA to increase solidarity. I also scheduled another interview with Father Corpora to gather direct quotes. Additionally, I was more nit-picky when evaluating my sentence structure during the revision process. Therefore, my research paper has stronger pieces of evidence to support all the claims I make, especially that Catholics are failing to advocate for immigrants. Moreover, my paper is now more cohesive and better developed.
How does this portfolio demonstrate my critical research, reading, and thinking skills? What was the role of research, reading, and discussion in my development as a writer this semester?
Critical thinking, reading and research skills each played an important role in creating this portfolio. The narrative allowed me to wrestle with my own thoughts and learn how to verbalize my own experiences. By doing the free write activity, I organized many ideas into specific components that helped me form my first script. Then, reading that script, out loud, was also a key component of this writing process because I had to ensure my story fit the length requirement and that my tone enhanced the storyline. These critical thinking and reading skills are also exemplified in the process of creating my rhetorical analysis. Each time I read my paper, I approached it with a new focus to ensure I was being a critical thinker and reader. This type of filtered reading was important to writing my rhetorical analysis because it helped me use specific word choice that supported the theme of the universality of intimacy. This is seen in one of my topic sentences, “while Chiron and Kevin shared a romantic intimate bond that ended in betrayal, Chiron connects with Juan on a deeper level” (Cox 4). Creating a sentence that summarizes the previous paragraph and introduces the new paragraph while using word choice that does not reveal the entire argument took critical thinking and reading skills.
Moving into the research paper, I had to use my thinking and reading skills to evaluate the research. Initially, I struggled to find research, but after the ‘library day,’ I learned to search by specific databases such as the ‘Chicano Database,’ ‘Convocate: Bringing Catholic Social Teaching and International Human Rights into Dialogue,’ and the “ATLA Religion Database.’ Moreover, I struggled to accept that some of my research did not come from scholarly articles, but rather an exploration of opportunities for Notre Dame students. Visiting the writing center helped me to understand how I could incorporate evidence from scholarly articles that would support the information included about volunteer opportunities for students at Notre Dame. After this appointment, I found evidence from an article promulgated by Pope Francis, titled Evangelii Gaudium, that discusses the necessity for Catholics to perform charity (Pope Francis 178-185)(Cox Research Paper). I combined that information with volunteer opportunities like serving at La Casa de Amistad to support my claim. These skills all culminated in the creation of a Ted Talk that strived to ignite a discussion within Notre Dame Catholic students about immigration by effectively summarizing and presenting my research paper.
How does this portfolio demonstrate my understanding of the practical conventions of academic writing? Where do my demonstrate knowledge of an academic citation style? Of working with source material? Of genre-based formatting conventions?
The practicality of writing exists on a continuum. Blog posts created throughout the semester allowed me to write and discuss academic topics, while simultaneously incorporating my personal views. Here, academic writing is multifunctional because I discuss rhetorical principles and their applications while also sharing my own opinions on a blog. Meanwhile, the narrative writing serves to tell a story, so I use casual and natural language to best adapt to the storytelling genre. For example, in my narrative, I say “my spirit sank to the bottom of my shoes, for the first time in my life, I wanted recess time to be over” (Cox Narrative Script). Here, I use terms like ‘wanted’ instead of ‘desired’ to illustrate my authentic voice. On the other hand, the research paper’s purpose is to educate Notre Dame Catholic students. This writing style allowed me to present explanations for the lack of Catholics helping immigrants and propose a solution. Then, I applied the format of the “Ted Talk” to my own presentation by making a slideshow to follow my speech. Thus, academic writing took various forms throughout the semester, and I had to adapt to the genre and purpose of each piece to best support my claim and fulfill the goal.
My knowledge of citations was majorly formed by the rhetorical analysis. In the past, I used MLA formatting sites like easybib. However, when comparing those citations to those that I created with the help of the Purdue Owl, I learned that the self-created citations are more accurate. I am glad I learned these skills prior to the research paper because that paper used many sources, thus I needed to have developed citation skills. These skills improved throughout the creation of my slideshow for the Ted Talk when I learned one cannot simply use images from Google. By consulting with Monica Monroe, the electronic resources librarian, about using images from Wikimedia Commons, I learned how to properly attribute images from these sites. In this way, I was able to best provide my audience with the means to find the images I used in my presentation. Therefore, in all my works cited, I show dedication to attributing the work of others.
What role has multimedia literacy played in the development of my reading, writing, rhetoric, and research skills this semester? Where does this portfolio demonstrate my awareness of the connections between medium and message? Of my ability to analyze and produce multimedia arguments?
At the beginning of the semester, I learned how to adapt to the concise style of reflective writing through the blog posts. Specifically, I posted about the Oatmeal comic, and argue that the comic effectively convinces readers of the importance of evaluating claims while acknowledging the emotional ties to personal beliefs because it was presented in a light-hearted way (Cox, Introduction to Rhetoric Blog Post). By analyzing a source like the Oatmeal comic, I improved my ability to form multimedia arguments.
Producing other multimedia arguments is shown in the creation of my recorded narrative. I employed the medium of voice recording by changing my tone to convey happiness and sadness, which enhanced the impact of my story. The rhetorical analysis required me to simultaneously analyze two texts, and prove their similar themes. This assignment allowed me to learn to incorporate my own voice as a writer, while also including research from other established scholars. That is seen when I discuss a monologue that includes “a response either to a situation or to a previous rhetorical statement” because the actor discusses the backlash she received after showing affection with her girlfriend (Herrick 11)(Cox Rhetorical Analysis). There, I effectively voiced my own claim, that the female was presenting a response, while also supporting it with evidence from James Herrick. Additionally, I connected this text to Moonlight when I add that unlike the girl in the monologue, Chiron is never able to display his sexuality and is hesitant to express intimacy (Cox Rhetorical Analysis). Here, I take different forms of media and affix them to the same theme that intimacy is a universal struggle.
Lastly, by presenting my research in a Ted Talk format, I took advantage of the opportunity to make a slideshow to follow along with my speech. Thus, my slides enhanced the points I was emphasizing verbally. This is seen on my slide for the ‘Globalization of Human Indifference” where I have multiple images of ‘human suffering’ pop up on the slide. I then used the audience’s neutral reaction to prove that humans have normalized the suffering of others. These pictures add a visual element to the verbal presentation, allowing the presentation to be represented through multiple media. Moreover, I connected the medium and the message by utilizing the live nature of the performance. By that I mean I did not memorize my speech, but used the time I had on stage to connect with my audience through eye contact, natural hand gestures, and a sincere tone and passion for my topic.
Which project(s) in this portfolio am I most proud of? Why? How does this work highlight my strengths and growth as a writer?
While I did not receive the grade outcome I had hoped for on the first submission of the rhetorical analysis, I am most proud of the process that went into writing my rhetorical analysis. At the beginning of the semester I noted that I have struggled to incorporate a voice into my writing (Cox, My Writing History). The rhetorical analysis helped me effectively balance my own claims about the universality of the struggle of intimacy with evidence from well-known rhetoricians. Moreover, I was extremely tedious in the process of writing, and later revising this paper. I re-read the paper numerous times to ensure all the ideas were linked by topic sentences, and the word choice at the sentence level was to the best of my abilities.
I would like to end this portfolio with a statement of extreme gratitude to each of my classmates and Dr. McLaughlin. Each person opened my mind to new perspectives, encouraged me to broaden my horizons, and allowed me to grow as a writer in a welcoming and non-judgemental environment. I know the friendships I made within this class will extend past the walls of this classroom. I am blessed to have met these wonderful people.
Works Cited
Herrick, James A. The History and Theory of Rhetoric: An Overview of Rhetoric. 2nd ed., Allyn and Bacon, Boston, 2001, pp. 1-30.
Lancioni, Judith. “The Rhetoric of the Frame: Revisioning Archival Photographs in the Civil War.” Visual Rhetoric: A Reader in Communication and American Culture. Newbury Park, CA: SAGE Publications, 2008. 105-117.
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