To: DU Writing Program Faculty
From: Jacob Weiss
Date: March 11, 2020
RE: Writt 1122 Learning Accomplishments
In Writing 1122 I learned how to write like I had not learned before from my previous classes in high school. I learned many various concepts that were displayed through my work for my past three papers. One of the things that was done well for this class was how the learning goals were almost always accomplished with every piece of work that was done in the class. Three of these goals include demonstrate proficiency with basic elements of rhetorical analysis (such as logos, ethos, and pathos) in a range of texts, and the application of that facility in their own writing, demonstrate the ability to incorporate and attribute or document source material in rhetorically effective ways, and demonstrate practical knowledge of the concept “rhetorical situation,” through the abilities both to analyze and to write effectively in different kinds of situations. Through this class I learned about different writing styles and learned the learning goals in an effective way that I will be able to carry into my other classes.
I learned how to demonstrate proficiency with basic elements of rhetorical analysis (such as logos, ethos, and pathos) in a range of texts, and the application of that facility in their own writing in many different pieces of work throughout the quarter. One of the ways I used this was in my piece for the WP #3 using the Aristotelian argument. For this piece I had argued that cash bail bonds needed to be reformed and used a story about Kalief Browder to evoke pathos in the reader. This story evoked pathos because it was about a kid who was convicted of stealing a backpack and ended up in jail because he could not pay the bail. This demonstrated my point while evoking one of the elements of rhetoric. Another way that it was apparent I learned about how to do a rhetorical analysis was from my blog posts. In my blog post for discussion post #2 I described how Cronon built his argument and developed his ethos in his argument with different examples. This helped me work on my skills to increase my abilities to accurately discover ethos within other works.
Along with learning the last learning point I also learned how to demonstrate the ability to incorporate and attribute or document source material in rhetorically effective ways. This was apparent in my WP #1. In this paper I wrote about the ways people talk about climate change and how it is hurting the cause instead of helping it. For this piece I cited multiple academic articles to better increase my ethos in the piece. Although I had already learned to do this before I feel that my ability to do this increased with this class. This class taught me how to better strengthen my own argument with the use of sources in rhetorically effective ways.
Lastly, I learned about demonstrate practical knowledge of the concept “rhetorical situation,” through the abilities both to analyze and to write effectively in different kinds of situations. I feel that how I learned this is most notable through the change between my academic writing piece and my Op Ed. With the drastic difference in style I feel that I was able to well demonstrate that I could do it effectively. Before this class I had never written an Op Ed before so I feel that this was the most effective learning goal of the entire class. Through this class I really learned how to write differently through the papers that were assigned. I think that by assigning different writing styles I was able to better learn about writing in different kind of situations.
For my revised papers I did my Op Ed and my paper based off the Rogerian model. In my Op Ed I worked on making my paper have more snap and sizzle while also incorporating a single tone that could be carried through the paper. For my paper on the Rogerian model I worked on fixing my grammar. I also worked on revising my solution to better think about my audiences questions. Although this was not one of the three learning goals I feel like I learned most about in this class I still think that I learned about how to revise papers better than any other class I had taken in the past.
Through this class I learned how to achieve in writing different types of arguments while also learning about the learning goals that were created for this class. I learned more about rhetorical analysis, how to effectively use sources to demonstrate an argument, and how to write for different types of situations. I learned about how to effectively different types of arguments in this class while also learning how to use rhetorical analysis.
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