My final projects were the flash narrative, the rhetorical analysis paper, and finally the
civic engagement project. The focuses for these pieces were to help better improve our writing.
However to go more into detail I feel as if the flash narrative's main focus was to help with
storytelling, the main focus for the rhetorical analysis was to be able to find ethos, pathos, and
logos in writings and be able to explain how it shows it. Finally the main focus for the civic
engagement project I feel is to be able to pull information to help support a claim that you have
made. The reason I chose these topics is because some of them I felt like it would be something
I could relate to and for others it was mainly because I chose something that I had never really
thought about so it would be something new to learn about. I don’t think my focus has really
changed however I do think that it has enlarged greatly. I have really been able to see more
things and understand more than I was able to before.
My goals for my first piece of work, which was the flash narrative, was to really focus on
the storytelling aspect and make sure that it was told like a story and didn’t try to make it
informational. One of the main challenges for this piece for me was obviously trying to keep it as
a story but another challenge was trying to include dialogue and knowing when to use it and
how to use it. The process that I went through for drafting, revising, and designing this piece
was mainly focusing on the peer review which I received. Peer reviews were very helpful to me
for all of my writings mainly because I could write something out and it would make sense to me
but it wouldn’t be full proof or perfect so any changes that I could make to help my audience
understand my writing I would take into consideration and make sure to take time with my
revisions. My final draft didn’t have tons of revision but the revisions I made I felt were very
important to my piece. Some examples of things I revised were spelling and grammar errors
which are huge factors in writing and also revising sentences which were worded poorly and did
not make sense which would not help my audience to understand the main part of my writing.
The second piece of writing we did was the rhetorical analysis paper. My rhetorical
analysis paper was on the article “Is there Room for Sports to Get Even More Commercialized”
by Joe Pinsker which was published in The Atlantic. It mainly talked about ways that sports use
advertising and compared how it was done in the past to how it is done now. My goals for this
piece were to really work on and find ways that the author used ethos, pathos, and logos. WIth
that being said, that was one of my main challenges for this paper. I really struggled with finding
ways that they were used, however I do think that this really helped me to look for ethos,
pathos, and logos in other things besides just papers that I am assigned to. The same thing
applied to this assignment with the revision, my key to this paper was really the peer reviews
which I received. They were all very helpful and influenced my paper in many ways which I think
made the paper so much better so without the peer reviews I doubt that I would have done well
on this assignment. My final draft had lots of revision with the main thing being how I cited the
article and finding and including more ethos, pathos, and logos.
The third and final project, which was easily the biggest, was the civic engagement
project. My goals for this piece were to be able to explain which side of the question I was on
and make sure that it was clear to the audience. While at the same time showing information for
both sides of the argument. However one main challenge I had was finding sources that would
support the other side of the debate so trying to provide information for both sides was a bit
difficult but I was able to show both sides however I feel that my information was aimed more
towards one side than the other. In drafting and revising my piece I relied on the peer reviews
as well as myself. I feel as if I was able to realize from my other papers what needed to be
changed and how I could best fix it on my way without a lot of help from others. That could also
be included with my goals since I was really wanting to show improvement in my writing with
this last piece of writing.
I see myself using the skills I gained from this class far into my future. Writing is very
important and for most is used everyday so knowing how to write well and how to look for things
to influence my writing I think will be very beneficial to me in my future. Whether it be for a future
job or for schooling I think I will be using the writing skills I learned far into my future to help
benefit me.