After viewing Kristin Arola's view on "family" on her video, I was almost some what annoyed. To me it sounded as though her view on family was based off her lack of family. Bitter comments because her friends and family are proud of their children so they like to send pictures of them when they get the chance to. Get over it. Family doesn't even have to be blood but to me it's whose most important in your life, and if your friends are there for you and have children and you consider them family shouldn't you consider their children family as well? But for me I chose the word Joy. You see it around almost every holiday and it's always a joy to indulge in good food, gifts and to surround yourself with family. In the common dictionary joy means a feeling of great pleasure. It's delight, gladness, pleasure, mirth, and rejoicing.

            When it comes to almost every holiday we’re always rejoicing over something. Freedom, Christ being born, Jesus dying for our sins, rejoicing in what we’re thankful for the most. But what makes the word Joy so grand is it doesn’t have to be a holiday to feel this word. It could be felt due to getting an A on your most recent test, getting married, buying a puppy anything that makes you feel good. Or another great thing that makes this word so special is cause its something that isn’t just about you. You can bring joy to someone else’s life just by the littlest things. Complimenting someone, surprising someone, or anything of that matter. It’s a selfless word. I myself have felt a lot of joy in my life especially when it comes to going to concerts, dates and even to the movies. It’s the type of word that doesn’t even take that much effort to feel, and that’s why it’s so wonderful.

Teaching/learning

In Dr. Tae’s video that compared skateboarding to the learning system in schools today, he mentioned a lot of good points. Overall he stated that when it comes to schools, students should be graded on whether or not they know the information or not. Either they know it or they don’t and giving them a C, or a B or any other grade doesn’t really mean they comprehend what they’ve been taught. In skateboarding you either know the trick or you don’t, and skateboarders aren’t graded on a trick, you either land the trick or you don’t, which makes a lot of sense and once they have learned the trick they move on to the next one. When you give a student a C it doesn’t really say that they know the information but that they know it enough to slide by, so then when they move onto the next thing being taught it causes even more of a struggle for them.

I agree with Dr. Tae, I think he brought a good point across and should be really taken into consideration. It also is close to how we’ve been taught in rhetoric. We’re not graded on the average scale, so we either wrote the essay correctly or we didn’t. It makes you try harder because they teacher hasn’t given you room to just slide by. You really have to work at it. My first few essays I got an unsatisfactory. But after given a few more chances to try again, i finally got it down pat and made some huge improvements in my writing. At first I hated the grading scale, I thought it was ridiculous. I wanted to know exactly what I had in the class, but after finally watching this video it finally made since. Our teacher was pretty much letting us know that we either know it or we don’t, and if we don’t know it then we better start practicing.

In Dr. Tae’s video that compared skateboarding to the learning system in schools today, he mentioned a lot of good points. Overall he stated that when it comes to schools, students should be graded on whether or not they know the information or not. Either they know it or they don’t and giving them a C, or a B or any other grade doesn’t really mean they comprehend what they’ve been taught. In skateboarding you either know the trick or you don’t, and skateboarders aren’t graded on a trick, you either land the trick or you don’t, which makes a lot of sense and once they have learned the trick they move on to the next one. When you give a student a C it doesn’t really say that they know the information but that they know it enough to slide by, so then when they move onto the next thing being taught it causes even more of a struggle for them.

I agree with Dr. Tae, I think he brought a good point across and should be really taken into consideration. It also is close to how we’ve been taught in rhetoric. We’re not graded on the average scale, so we either wrote the essay correctly or we didn’t. It makes you try harder because they teacher hasn’t given you room to just slide by. You really have to work at it. My first few essays I got an unsatisfactory. But after given a few more chances to try again, i finally got it down pat and made some huge improvements in my writing. At first I hated the grading scale, I thought it was ridiculous. I wanted to know exactly what I had in the class, but after finally watching this video it finally made since. Our teacher was pretty much letting us know that we either know it or we don’t, and if we don’t know it then we better start practicing.

Semester in Review

It's absurd that this is the last blog I will be posting this semester. When I first started this class I was excited to begin writing again. But then after all of the assignments assigned to me I thought "oh no, what have I done..and am I going to make it through." Well now I learned that I stuck it out and did it for the best. I learned so much about my writing this semester. My favorite blog that I posted this semester was the Pumped Up Kicks one. I loved analyzing it, and learning so much about the background behind the popular song. Understanding what the actual meaning of the song was was very interesting and it makes me look at other songs differently as well. These blogs make me look at everything differently and open my eyes to things I would have never seen before this class.

It seems surreal to think that this will be my last blog post of the year. Many of the blogs we posted were about a variety of topics, but the one that I enjoyed the most was the one about Dr. Tae's video. It taught me that it is good to relate to your audience real life situations that a majority of people can relate to or at least get an idea of what the speaker is trying to convey. It would be easy for Dr. Tae to talk above people’s heads, using analogies or dialogue a normal person may not have but he kept it at a level that most people could understand. The assessment made me look at my own writing and think of new ways to make my writing more relatable to my audience. Even though I may know what I am talking it does not mean my audience is viewing it in the same way or getting fully what I am trying to convey.

-168

Ashley Kocanda

Semester in Review Blog post

When I first decided to take a rhetoric class, I was frightened. I thought I would be writing a billion papers and I set myself up for the worst. I also thought I was a hopeless writer and I was never going to get better than what I already was. I ended up proving myself wrong. I learned a lot, especially from these blog posts. I think that the blog post that taught me the most about rhetorical situations was definitely the “Pumped Up Kicks” one. I never really thought about analyzing a song and seeing what it actually meant, especially a song that was just a big hit like this one. When a person listens to a song, they usually are looking for a good beat and stray away from really paying attention to what the words are. I think that after being able to take a song and figuring out an actual (or alternative) motive/meaning is really cool and definitely helpful when critical thinking, which is basically what it has taught me.

Priyanka Bhakta

Word Count: 174

Semester in Review

        If I were to choose one of the blog posts that really seemed to help me get a better understanding of rhetorical situations, I would be inclined to choose the post that dealt with Dr. Tae and his insight on how we learn in schools compared to how we learn in life.  Taking a system that has been in place for centuries finding ways to try to make it appeal to the learning process more than it currently does is something that takes quite a lot of critical thinking.  Looking beyond something at face value and finding reasons why it does not seem to be working effectively really takes a lot of ability to see the bigger picture in things.  The way Dr. Tae supported his claims was in a nice and easy to understand example which was how he went through a learning process by his lonesome and came out of it feeling like he could learn more than any instructor could have done for him.  This is because at the end of the day, one either learns something, or they do not, and that is why I feel like I was able to learn a lot from this blog post assignment.

-Matthew S.

Word Count: 203

Semester Review-JF

This class has taught me a lot about rhetoric and the rhetorical situation. Obviously, that was its intent, or at least, I'd hope that would have been the intent. While we had many assignments, the blog posts taught me the most about the rhetorical situation. Of our many blog posts, the one that taught me the most would have to be the workplace rhetoric. It not only demonstrated the idea of author, audience, text, purpose, and setting the best, but it also gave me a chance to learn something more about my boss. My favorite part of that post though, was that the sign I chose provided a bit of humor on a normally serious topic. I thought it was funny how my boss put the second sign up because the first wasn’t working, and I was happy that I had the opportunity to share that with others. Overall, I learned a lot from all the posts, but the workplace rhetoric taught me more than any other, and it was also my favorite post.

Word Count: 174

its the final blog post

It is hard to say which blog post helped me understand rhetoric and what a piece or rhetoric is. This is because I am mentally incompetent and had no idea there was such a thing as a piece of rhetoric. After the first few post I think I understood what rhetoric is, but it is hard to gauge just how much of something you know about when you don’t know how much of it you don’t know about. I hope that made sense. So I can’t really say which blog post helped me learn the most. The blog I enjoyed the most would probably be the one concerning workplace rhetoric. I have always thought that sign was funny and I got a chance to at least tell some people about it without sounding whiney. Some of the comments I received made me laugh as well. I don’t know how much it taught me, but at least I enjoyed it and that isn’t something I can say about most assignments.

-Codie Rome 169

FINAL BLOG POST :)

I think my favorite blog this semester that showed me what a rhetorical situation really was and what it meant was the workplace blog. I never thought of signs as a rheotrical situation, not that I ever knew what that was before this class though...... I think that is a good way to help people really understand what is meant by the term so that they can understand from personal experiences. I mean, I don't know about any one else that has a job but at mine there are times when I have to put up signs that I wrote myself and I actually tend to put a lot of thinking into them. I always think about how I don't want to be the person that spells an easy word wrong, so they take a picture and put it on instagram or twitter. Futher more I think I can honestly say that I understand the word thanks to this blog post. I will miss sharing my thoughts with you all, even though half of you probably don't read them....(haha)

karah trinkle
word count 180

Semester In Review

I think that out of all the blog posts I have done this semester, I would have to say that the Advertising Rhetoric post helped me understand the idea of a rhetorical situation the most. The advertisement's within the blog posts really helped me see why determining your audience is important. One of the reasons why it's so important is because if you know who your audience is then your message will get across easier and more powerful, which is one of the key factors to writing. My advertisement was about the affects of smoking, so right away I know that this advertisement is mostly towards the smoker audience.The advertisement can also be towards anyone because it warns us about the dangers of smoking. This assignment over advertising really made me think about the components to not only a successful advertisement, but a successful piece of writing as well.

Emily Shouse
(150 words).

I think that the "Pumped Up Kicks" blog post helped me understand the rhetorical situation the most.   "Pumped Up Kicks" had a very upbeat tempo, but when you read through the lyrics it was completely different. In trying to analyze this song you had to answer many questions.  You had to figure out what was possibly going on and why. You had to figure out why Foster wrote this song the way he did and really the rhetorical situation is trying to figure out the answer to a bunch of questions.  These questions range from what the author thinks and why, if it is effective, who is the intended audience for the song, and whether the author gets his point across.  I think that this post alone made me use pretty much the whole rhetorical situation to correctly figure out the analysis of song and the lyrics.

Semester in Review

The assignment from this serious that has helped me the most with understanding rhetoric would definitely have to be my creative nonfiction paper. My creative nonfiction paper made me understand rhetoric the most because it allowed me to open up my thinking and put my thoughts in a way so that other people could understand them. Before writing my creative nonfiction, I was not really able to understand the whole fact of putting your perspective in a way so that your readers will understand too because I always thought that they would understand my writings just because I did. After writing my creative nonfiction, I was a lot more familiar with allowing my readers to understand and feel what I would feel. Since I was able to do this, it has made me a better writer and has definitely made me understand the definite meaning of rhetoric now. I am happy to say that I can now walk out of this class with a better understanding of rhetoric.

Brooke Kinney (169)

Semester in Review

The assignment from this semester that helped me understand the idea of rhetoric and the rhetorical situation is the blog posts. Each week I have had to do a blog based on different topics and I had to analyze them and then discuss it. After doing so many of the blog posts each one became easier to do and how to analyze what we have to read or watch. Also, writing a two paragraph response helped me know what I need to put in response to different topics for the future. Also, the blogs are an excellent way for people to learn how to express their different ideas and opinions on many topics. It helped me to express my ideas more and how to expand them so that I have a four hundred word response. I may not have wanted to do the blogs in the beginning of the semester but now I am glad that I did them.

Megan Grimes (159)

With all these different topics we had to post to the blogger website I think that helped me understand rhetoric and rhetorical situation would be the Workplace blog.  The main reason being that before I had to actually sit down and thoroughly think about what the sign means.  Up until that point the sign was just another sign hanging in our locker room.  Now that I have thought about it every time I see it I stop and think about what it really means.  So I am glad in a way that we had to do all these blogs on different topics each week because it really has helped me change my thinking on certain things, even though most weeks I didn't want to the blog which I think most people didn't want to but at the end of the day I'm glad I made myself do them.

The Semester in Review

I feel like the blog assignment that affected me the most was the "Workplace Rhetoric." The “Workplace Rhetoric” assignment is where my entire outlook on rhetorical situations began to change. Before we were given this assignment I felt that rhetorical situations were always formally written and conveyed, especially after the assignment on the e-mail from "President Obama" in which we critiqued his lack of formality. In the beginning of these assignments I never thought that a rhetorical situation would be a part of my everyday life, because I would only do formal writings for school, but this wasn’t the case at all. During the "Workplace Rhetoric" assignment I realized how much rhetoric affects my daily life and that it's not just formal means of writing ideas down on paper. I began to open my eyes and later realized that rhetoric can be displayed in so many diverse ways, such as a song, an advertisement sign, or a funny television commercial.

Breanna H.

(154 Words)

Semester in Review

I think my favorite assignment that helped me learn the idea of the rhetorical situation would be the lyrical rhetoric blog involving the song "Pumped Up Kicks," by Foster the People. That assignment made me really think about all of the aspects involving the rhetorical situation. From looking at the song writer's background, to the song's beat, I learned all of the parts included in a rhetorical situation. I remember getting into groups and discussing how the songs beat and the lyrics may have a hidden meaning. The assignment as a whole just kind of put everything in perspective for me. At the beginning of the year, I kind of had a tough time with the idea of a rhetorical situation, but now I just look back at that blog to remember all of the aspects involved. Instead of looking back at the sheet Ms. Jarmer gave us at the beginning of the year about what a rhetorical situation is, I just use the blog as a reference.

David Sacre
(168 words)

This Year in Review

This year, out of all the assignments we have had to do I would have to say that the blog post about "The Woman in the White House" has helped me understand more about rhetorical situations. It showed how she would make the song so that way it would be a good seller, not necessarily true statements in the song though. She talked about how a woman in the White House wouldn't fight and they wouldn't spend money. But those are the opposite of a stereotypical woman would be. Instead of making a true song, she was just more worried about how she could sell the song and make good money out of it rather than getting a true point across and trying to make a difference in society today. She also had the CD cover a woman in high heels with the White House in between her legs. So she didn't put true statements into the song and showed how people really think about women in politics. That helped me realize how people really are in the world today, they will say just about anything and do just about anything if it means they are going to make money whether it is true or not.

Makayla Stark
Word Count: 206

Holiday Rhet

If you have never heard the phrase "Peace on Earth" during the Christmas season, you must be living under a rock. Everywhere you turn you either hear the phrase in a song or you see it on a decoration of some sort. According to Merriam Webster dictionary it states that peace means " harmony in personal relations", and "freedom from disquieting thoughts or emotions." Have any of you ever just sat around and thought about why this phrase is mostly just brought up around Christmas time. No one goes around during the year saying this, only during the holiday season. Christmas is the time of year when everyone is generally happy and they want to enjoy themselves and their families. Of course we would all love to have peace all year around, but lets get real..unfortunately things just do not work like that. I find myself always wanting peace on earth that just like any other human being, and I wish things were just that simple.
I somewhat believe that this phrase is brought up around this time of the year because it is the most joyous time of the year, but it also has a lot to do with the real reason we have Christmas. I think that since Christmas is celebrated because of the birth of our savior, Jesus Christ, and this is why peace on earth is such a big deal around this holiday. When I think of Jesus I think of peace, and happiness. I kind of think this is a negative look on peace on earth, because we should have this hope all year around, not just around this holiday. I think that not only Christmas  should be peaceful, i think that all 365 days of the year should be this way. I cannot tell you how many times I have sang the song "peace on earth" throughout my nine years of chorus and i never really thought about the words, i just thought it was a christmas song, I now have a whole different outlook.

Not exactly the quid pro quo...

Thanks to Google Images for the pictures.

The holidays are a time of family, friendship, and all around together-ness. We're supposed to all get together and everyone be happy and loving and just have a great time with our little 2 adult, 2.54 children and 1.58 pet household. I mean, that's the average, so it's to be expected, right? My parents are divorced, remarried, and have children with their new spouses. The new children (2 of my younger siblings, Averi and Reid) call each other cousins and call the other parent of mine who isn't their parent Uncle and Aunt. So we don't exactly fit into the mold.

It's not unusual for families to be different than the norm. We live in a diverse society. We really don't have the cookie-cutter 2 adults and 2.54 children households with the stay at home Betty Crocker moms and "Honey I'm home!" dads anymore. We live in a society where families sit down to fast food between basketball games and volleyball practice; where the lines between divorces are blurred, and in laws are closer than blood relatives; where it's not as big of a deal to spend part of Christmas with someone else, or with friends at the movies. The ideas we have of families in Christmas sweaters implies a family mind-set that only seems to be present at Christmas. Not to say that the way things run now are bad- that's simply how some families, like mine, are now, and I love my family exactly the way we are. Not everyone fits the mold now, but that's what makes each holiday celebration unique and special.