Dear Prof,
I have enjoyed attending your class this semester as well as learning more about the concept of writing as a process which one creates for themselves. I would like to now take this time to reflect on how my views of writing and rhetoric, and learning experience have changed throughout out my time in the class, as well as the goals we set for ourselves and whether they were accomplished in our fifteen weeks.
Entering into the class, I wouldn’t say I had incredibly set views on my writing as a practice. I enjoyed it and thought I wrote well, but this mostly consisted of me writing out an entire paper and then declaring it finished. Through this semester, I learned this wasn’t exactly the best practice for well-rounded papers. I found that really opening myself up to pouring everything onto a paper, and then coming back with peers and a mop to clean it up was a much better way of going about composing.
In this, I discovered the ability to take more risks with composing and creating the first time around. Being increasingly free with my writing allowed me to express things in ways I would normally shy away from. The ability to come back and rework my papers made this feel more authentic. Composing is a process of exploding on the page, coming back to sift through the wreckage and pull out what works, discarding what doesn’t, and overall expressing yourself.
My views of composing and the writing process were not the only things which underwent change in these class periods. My learning experience was also challenged from 8:00 a.m. to 9:50 a.m. every Tuesday and Thursday. Sitting in a class for that length of time can inevitably grow tiring, however, you were able to avoid this feeling in our class through many different techniques.
First, the games we played helped myself as well as the class to understand rhetoric as a concept of expressing one’s self and engaging in discourse between one another. Further, the games and things like the analysis we completed of the Kendrick Lamar songs showed us how different situations affect the choices we make in this expression.
As an example, I was assigned “The Art Of Peer Pressure,” and before this class I never would have thought to analyze it to the level I was able to when I wrote, “He splits the song up into two parts, which demonstrate his shift between being on board with what his friends want to do, and realizing what he’s doing is wrong. He feels he is unable to change his behavior, because it would make his companions judge his actions and separate him from the family he is a part of in their community.”
This is just something I never thought to do, because I never considered the situation he could be in to write a song like the one he did. The ability to see different perspectives through rhetoric and rhetorical situation in art is a skill I am incredibly grateful to have improved and cultivated in this class. These changes in perspective and learning experience truly made it a joy to come to class every day, and I am forever appreciative.
Looking at the goals we set for ourselves of reflecting and analyzing our processes, engaging with different genres and situations with multiple modes, describing rhetorical situations, rhetorically analyzing works, and crafting multimodal works -- I personally believe we more than accomplished them.
Whether it was describing my process in week two, talking about the land we live on and its stories, or analyzing practices and professional fields, we were encouraged to express ourselves in the best way we saw fit. If it was a different mode than simply writing a paper, you encouraged us to explore those options. Remembering the vlog I filmed for the remix project, I saw an opportunity to express myself through the art of film and speaking rather than putting pen to paper. I felt comfortable to foster creativity and differing ideas in the classroom without worrying about whether my grade would ever suffer for it. These learning goals were a perfect outline to a semester which encouraged freedom of expression and exploration of ourselves as writers and rhetoricians.
Looking at this semester in the broadest sense, it was a chance to view and cultivate our writing process through the exploration of rhetoric and the countless situations which one may find the urge to create in. I now feel ready to tackle the challenges of composing in other classes according to the rhetorical situations which they inhabit. I have learned and improved upon my composing process, and cannot thank you enough for assisting me in this incredible feat.
Regards, Jack Walsh
