Thanks for a great semester :)

   Well it is the final blog post, which naturally means it is the end of another semester.  

       When first starting off the semester in this Rhetoric of Literature class, I was not exactly sure I would survive. The readings in our rhetoric book started off rather difficult, with the quizzes following and proving to be just as difficult. I could not tell you the difference between a Sophist and a Naturalist, and I probably couldn’t even have given a definition for rhetoric. At the very least, I have learned how to properly read and process difficult information this semester. When reading pieces from books like our rhetoric text book, it is not possible to fully understand the information by skimming the passage. This is something I remember Dr. Morris explaining to our class on one of the first days of class after many of my classmates failed the first reading quiz. This reading skill is one I hope to take on with me to future english class which will certainly involve some heavy reading.

When it comes to rhetoric, I have learned a great deal more than I ever imagined. For one, I can actually define the word now. I know this class focused mainly on the use of rhetoric in environmental texts, however what I took away most from this class is how to be a better public speaker. Some of my favorite authors from the book: Cicero, Burke,  and Kierkegaard, all taught me how to reach out to the proper audience, and publicly share my thoughts and opinions with anyone I may be speaking to. Public speaking is something I always have and always will enjoy and I hope that I will be able to apply my new found rhetorical skills, and persuade others to listen to my “truth”. I also enjoyed the  showing of Wall-E in class. After focusing on texts and literature all semester, it was a good opportunity to see rhetoric used in a different form of media.

       The only negative aspect of the course I found were the daily reading quizzes. I understand Dr. Morris’s reasoning behind giving the quizzes, and making sure every one in class read, however, I read for every class and still did not do as well as I would have liked to on the reading quizzes. Most of the time, especially with the rhetoric book, it was a lot of information to digest at once which is what tended to overwhelm me when taking the quizzes. Just as a suggestion for the future, maybe it would be possible to still have reading quizzes, but structure them in a different way. Instead of having set questions, maybe just ask students to write down five main ideas they got from reading a passage. This would also help Dr. Morris to see what students were obtaining from the readings, as well as what they were interested in most.

       Overall, I enjoyed this Rhetoric of Literature a lot more than  I anticipated at the beginning of the semester. I was able to learn how to better my use of rhetoric in speaking, writing, and other media, while also learning about our environment. This will probably end up being one of the more useful classes I take in my years as an undergraduate student. I intend to take what I have learned here and carry it with me throughout the rest of my career as a student, and hopefully one day as a teacher in my own classroom.

I love speaking.

I love speaking. public speaking. conversational speaking. whatever.


...and is it weird that ever since taking this class, I find myself unintentionally using rhetoric and the skills we've learned ALL THE TIME when I speak? Anytime I'm trying to persuade someone to do something or go somewhere, or agree with what I'm saying. . . BOOM RHETORICAL SKILLS!

Yesterday for example, I was talking to some of my girls on my floor in Deatrick, trying to convince them to live here again. I gave them all the pros and cons. . . Kierkagaard would have been disappointed though. He's all about "practicing what you preach" and whatnot. Here I am, trying to convince these girls that Deatrick is the place to live again, when I myself am not even living here next year. I'm so over dorm life and want my own apartment. Ooooops, sorry Kierkagaard.

I also find that I am a lot like a TV advertisement. When I speak, or when Im' trying to persuade someone to something, I only give them the positives of the situation. Never the negatives. I definitely do it intentionally. Who wants to share the bad, when you're so focused on the good. I kind of remind myself of those videos we watched in class one day. The first was about the natural, home grown-type farm, and the second was about the company that chemically engineers corn. I am totally that commercial. I also talk about the positives and great things of whatever I'm trying to push for, but hide, or "sugar coat" the negative effects. I'm not really proud of this trait. I think I talked about in an earlier post how a "good" orator should be able to still convince his audience he is right even after presenting both sides of an argument.


Future career in advertising?

"...but good luck anyway."

I spoke with a housing administrator (who shall remain nameless by choice) yesterday about my Operation Deatrick project. After hearing my proposal, and everything I wanted to do, she said, "We've tried for years to get students interested in recycling. It never works, so don't be disappointed if you don't get the results you're looking for... but good luck anway".

What a crap attitude.

I understand that it is hard to get colleges students motivated about their own school work, let alone recycling. Does that mean you give up and chalk it up to students not caring?

No, most students don't know we have recycling bins.

No, most students wouldn't use them if they knew we had them.

No, most students aren't concerned with saving the environment.

But that CAN change. I don't care what anyone says, I know it can change. At the beginning of this semester, (pardon my french), but I could have given two shits about recycling. I could have cared less about conservation or the environment, or any of that stuff. I was "that girl" who threw trash out of her car window while driving, who noticed recycling bins, but probably never put anything into them.

And here I am now. 3 months later, organizing a program for my entire dorm to get people excited about recycling. To get people excited about saving the earth. To get people to STOP throwing trash out of their car windows ;)

Maybe housing officials didn't take the right steps, or maybe then gave up too soon. My hope is that students will see this coming from me (a fellow student), and will be able to relate better with what I have to say. I don't expect to change the world, but if I can change the minds of even a couple of students, I will be satisfied.

Rhetoric in film.

I must say, I've really enjoyed watching Wall-E in class this past week. I know I posted about it earlier, but I have a different point this time.

All semester, we've been reading and reading and reaaaaaaaaaading different pieces of literature, different works from different authors. That's all find and dandy, but it's kind of nice to have a break from reading.

My point here is, I really enjoy getting to pick rhetorical strategies out of a different kind of media, because I never really realized these strategies are used in literally every aspect of our society. I did enjoy picking through books and articles in our American Earth text. It was neat to learn about the Sophists, the Naturalists, Existentialism, and everything else we discussed from our rhetoric text, however, it's even cool to be able to see those same strategies at play in something that is aimed at a more modern public...especially something that is aimed primarily at children.

Thankfully, in Wall-e, the director used rhetoric to get a positive message across to children, one that will hopefully impact the way they grow, live, and respect the environment. However, all too often in today's movie industry we see negative and inappropriate messages being portrayed to our children. It seems like everything is about sex, drugs, alcohol, smoking, or being skinny. This is were we run into the problem. Rhetoric is SUCH a powerful tool if used correctly, that it makes me nervous for the children of today.

It is a pleasure to for once see a director using these skills for persuade students in the more positive direction of recycling, getting exercise, taking care of our planet. It would be nice to see more movies today hold such an important message.

NORESCO :)

The company I have gotten involved with for my "Go Green!" Program in Deatrick Hall is called NORESCO. I first learned of the company back in August, as they were recruited by Kutztown University before to give a presentation on energy conservation and recycling to all community assistants at our summer training. NORESCO has also worked with Millersville University, The University of Rhode Island, as well as many public high schools in Virginia and South Carolina.

The main goal of NORESCO is to focus in on energy conservation and recycling problems in school facilities, and residence halls. They promote things such as taking shorter showers, turning the lights, not leaving fans or televisions on, and most importantly...recycling.

Since the problem I have found in Deatrick Hall deals with the behaviors and mind sets of students, I was immediately attracted to NORESCO's "Behavior Change Program" which focuses on dealing with current situations using the resources available in that area. The statement I found on their website reads as follows:

"Our proprietary Sustainable Behavior Change program utilizes a cognitive-social-based process that promotes cultural change. Our process measures multiple motivational factors, behaviors, and perceptions of energy use among members of the focal community. Assessing these factors allows NORESCO to custom-tailor a behavioral change program for each client, making full use of existing mechanisms.

Energy Conservation Through Behavior Change® is a dynamic program, and therefore is modified before each subsequent implementation using pre-post intervention assessment findings. In this way, specific components of the process can be modified, added or deleted based on current situational needs. This allows us to continually improve the effectiveness of the program and to accommodate changes in technology, energy costs, and behavior."




When I attended the presentation during the summer, it was clear that NORESCO representatives are passionate about what they do, and truly believe changes can be made (and successful) anywhere, which is why I was so drawn to the company.

If you would like to do any further reading about NORESCO, here is the website :)

http://www.noresco.com/site/content/index.asp

Change of Focus.

So my mind set when I began my final project and now that I have ended my final project has changed a great deal. Initially, I found myself throwing the blame on the Housing and Residential Life Services Office, or the Environmental Office on campus. And while those two departments still have a lot of work to do in making our dorms more environmental friendly, I can't say the blame should be dumped entirely on them.

The more I looked around Deatrick, talked to students and staff, the more I realized the blame lies with in the people this is effecting most--the residents of Deatrick Hall. Most students living in the dorm could care less about recycling. I went around to many of the girls on my floor and 24 out of 60 of them had no idea we even had a recycling bin in the hall. It's not that the resources aren't there, it's just that they aren't being used properly.

Sure, we could still use a few more recycling bins to make our efforts more noticeable, but all in all, I ended up needing to switch to focus of my project. Initially, it was all about getting the housing department to step up and be a better promoter for recycling. However, now that I see that they are already doing this, my project has focused to the students.

Being a community assistant in Deatrick, I am lucky enough to be in a position where I have a lot of influence over the students, which I think makes this project a bit easier. I am now working on organizing a program/presentation for January when we all come back from break to address the recycling issue in Deatrick. I have teamed up with an environmental company, NORESCO (which I will talk more about in my presentation) and have been in touch with some of their specialists in order to create a more effective program.

While the logistics and details of the program are still early on in development, my hope is that after attending my program, students of Deatrick will begin to care a little more about the dorm they are living in, as well as the impact they can have on our earth.

"The earth doesn't need us. . ."

      I love Wall-e to death. I think he is the cutest robot in the world. HOWEVER, watching this movie in class genuinely started to freak me out.


      From talking in class, and by simply being a member of society, we all know that the way our earth is being treated is not positive. We know that as people in today's world, we take advantage of everything we have and everything that is provided to us by the earth. I thought I had an understanding of this, until I started watching Wall-e. Obviously, our world is not at such an extreme point as in the movie, but it is showing us right where we are headed.

      You don't realize just how bad things are, until you step back and take a second to take a look at the direction in which we are moving.

       I think the part that scares me so much about this movie is seeing how truly brainwashed humans get; how sucked into consumerism and materialist we become. While in present day it is no where near to how it is presented in the movie, it is easy to see the future of our world within this film. 

      I would like to believe that humans are smart then that. That humans are able to pull themselves away from our material possessions and focus a little more on the natural world around us. I know we have talked about this a billion times in class, but if people continue this downward spiral of littering, not recycling, and not caring, we are in for a world of trouble. 

      I believe it was Amber who in class said, "The earth doesn't NEED us...we NEED the earth". I don't think this could have been said any better. Without the earth, and without nature, we're destined years from now to end up in a world like the one portrayed in Wall-e.