On August 20, 2012, I began my first day of Rhetoric at
DACC. By the end of the day, I was asked by my instructor, Ms. Jarmer, to write
a four hundred word essay on the article “TV’s Negative Influence on Kids
Reaffirmed,” by Jeffrey McCall. She would use the essay to recommend me to
continue with the class or to withdrawal from the class. By doing this, I was put
in a rhetorical situation. Not all rhetorical situations are the same, but they
all have the same five aspects, text, author, audience, purpose, and setting.
The text was my diagnostic essay; the author was me; the audience was the
instructor; the purpose was to demonstrate my writing ability; the setting was
the allotted two days to write my essay. In terms of my essay, these aspects
affected my paper more than I would have liked. The text itself was difficult
only because I found it somewhat difficult to condense a page and a half of
information in 200 words; I am used to summing up smaller works like that using
less words. The author was not very a very stressful aspect. The audience
however stressed me out a little. I was worried my work would not be
satisfactory in the eyes of my audience, and would be dismissed immediately.
The purpose would be for a grade in the class and a recommendation for Rhetoric
101 or another course. The last aspect of my situation was my setting, and,
like with the author, the setting posed little stress to me. Looking back at my
essay now, I’m not sure I would have done it the same way.
Because of the stress caused by some of the rhetorical aspects, the content of my essay was altered from what it normally would have been. The stress from the text caused me to stretch my analysis longer than what it should have been in order for the point to be appropriately understood. Now that I have a better grasp of my assignment, I would have put more thought and time into my summary. Along with the unsuitable summary, the second half of my essay was altered from what it normally would have been. My second half was supposed to be whether or not I agreed with the article and why. Although I stand by my opinion now, I would have gone back and reworded my argument so it would make more sense for the audience. Specifically, I would have rearranged my personal experience and put it all together in one section and put my views on other people and their situations in another section with both sections being joined by better transition. Overlooking my essay, I would have done many things differently in my essay the second time around due to my expanded knowledge of rhetoric and some rhetorical situations.
Word count: 477
-Jon Faw
Jon, I also was very nervous about writing this paper. The thought that this paper would ultimately determine whether or not my presence in the class would be accepted by Ms. Jarmer was very stressful to me. I also thought that it was difficult to summarize this article in 200 words.I was used to summaries because my highschool teacher stressed it more than anything. She always told us it was important to know how to effectivley summarize articles. I suppose she was right since this was my first writing assignment in college. The assignment was stressful to me too, and I think that if the stress would not have been there I would have been able to write much better. It was hard for me to determine a side because I was not really for or against either side comopletely. After being in class for the past few things and learning how Ms. Jarmer is, I think I could do much better on the assignment.If I would have spent a little more time on the paper I could have done much better as well.
ReplyDeleteHey Jon, I'm not commenting on yours because you commented on mine, I just wanted to see how you wrote your paper. I'd like to say that I was in the exact position as you were when we were told to write the paper. I had no clue what I was doing or how I was going to do it. I was also frightened out of my mind because this one assignment was my key to staying in Rhetoric class, which also made me even more nervous and scared. I'm not a very confident writer; I'm actually not that great of one either, but I put everything I had into that prompt even if I was going to kill me and it sure did. I pushed and I pushed to write that prompt. I ended up becoming stressed out because I did not know how to start it. I could not pick a side at first but then I thought about Jersey shore. Loads of kids watch those kinds of show and you know how kids are these days, I blamed MTV for our failing generation. Even though you complimented me for being proud of my prompt and not wanting to change it, I compliment you for wanting to fix your work to make it better, not many people have the guts to say so. I applaud you, Jon.
ReplyDeletePriyanka
Word count:230
I added smileys but they aren't showing up. :(
DeleteAfter reading your article and those of several others I think that everyone was stressed and let that influence their writing. I am no exception and I find it interesting how everyone seems to be affected by it. Although I do better in some cases of being stressed and I end up doing far better than I had anticipated, others don’t seem to be as lucky. We were all faced with the same task and we each handled it in different ways. I just happened to be lucky enough to have had some experience with essays like this. The vast majority of people seemed to try to fit the essay into a form that they are used to and their writing suffered for it. It is also easy to see writing a lot for the summary even though it was a small article. The second half of the assignment also seemed to lead others to folly. To write as one normally would isn’t always the easiest thing to do when put in a stressful situation and this led many to wish they could go back and change it to their true writing style. Just don’t focus on what you should have done and learn from your mistakes.
ReplyDelete- Codie Rome (207 words)
Hey Jon! I was feeling just about the same way when I found out I had to write a 400 word essay that determined whether or not I should stay in the class or drop out and take a lower level English course. I will say that you described a rhetorical situation in much better detail than I did, and even helped my understanding a bit more. I also felt that summing up that article in 200 words was hard to do because of all the detail that was in it. Because of all the stress put on this assignment I would have to agree my writing style was altered a lot. It is usually worded a lot different but because of what the assignment was worth, I was much more inclined to use a more broad vocabulary in writing this paper. I probably should not have put as much time into my summary as I did. I had a decent summary, but the effort I put into my summary resulted in it becoming almost all of what I had to say, which wasn’t near enough for the whole paper. After seeing how I did on my essay I would have spent more time concentrating on staying on the topic throughout the essay, and making sure things make perfect sense to the audience.
ReplyDeleteKylan Kurkendall-(223 words)