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.