ePortfolio Project

Reflective Entry

As the semester commenced, my knowledge of Rhetoric was limited to say the least. On the first day, we were assigned to free-write about what we knew about Rhetoric. I believe my definition was something ridiculous like "a style of writing or something." I quickly learned there was a lot more meaning to the word. Its not only about writing but speaking as well. Its about writing or speaking effectively in a way to persuade.

Rhetorical Knowledge
The microtheme project allowed me to discover complex thought. I started off with a problem, and that allowed me to think of other related, deeper problems. The microtheme allowed me to articulate a complex problem by organizing my thoughts starting off with a simple format, and then to branch outwards from there analyzing a problem from every aspect. Other key terms I learned throughout the semester and were able to apply to my writings were Kairos, Syntax, and being able to flow smoothly from paragraph to paragraph using transitional sentences. Knowing what to include and what to leave out was extremely crucial for the Documentary project as well.

Creative and Critical Thinking
I also learned how to look closely at a problem and to ask relevant questions about it. Especially during the Documentary project where we also had to include a separate document of 4 questions that we needed to answer. One of the questions was to ask 5 questions that I had about the film that I watched. The film I watched was After Innocence which was about people who were sent to jail for decades for crimes they didn't do. One of the questions that came to mind was :What is worse- putting an innocent man in jail or having a guilty man running free? An innocent man in jail can't do any harm, however a guilty man on the streets can easily cause more damage. So you can kind of understand the court system wanting to rather be safe than sorry. But then there are still questions that remain like why are people going to jail without refutable evidence? So it kind of goes back and forth and you can begin to see and understand how these problems are caused.

Genre Knowledge and Mechanical Knowledge
A big one for me is the learning process of mechanical knowledge. A lot of actual learning is done by teaching yourself and studying the material given to you. A teacher can present you the information but its really you who needs to go home and really figure it out and then come back with any questions. That is the approach I took this semester and it worked out pretty good.