Grade Evaluation

I feel, after taking this course that I have a really firm grasp on the subject of rhetoric, considering that I knew nothing of it coming into the classroom for the first time. I have made progress in my writing as well as my understanding of concepts and ideas in the material we have covered. Honestly, I feel as though my grade has remained the same from the midterm evaluation, which is a B. This is due to the consistency of my work. However, this does not mean I have not made progress from the midterm mark and now. My class participation has remained the same but my writing has made progress. I felt as though I was a bit more comfortable going into a paper than I was before. I became more organized and got more confident comments on it. Understanding rhetoric also became easier and the papers really pointed out to me the important things to note when writing about a rhetorical analysis. I can honestly say that this has been the best and most informative writing course I have taken and it has helped me a lot. In terms of my writing, I made constant progress as all my papers were handed in and spaced out through the semester so that noting was rushed. I had ample time for each one due to my good time management. Of course, I can still work on some things in my writing, however, over all, I feel that I did a good job in this class this semester.

film project

I have to say that our group (me, anup, nick, and daniel) are making some pretty good progess. We have the basic script written out (we are adding a little more), the scenes needed, and we even have the first and last scene already filmed and edited. However, all of us seem really busy so we are finding it hard to find time when we can all work together. The main problem we have had however, is saving our movie on the editer. For some reason, we have had difficulty with it. We have found a solution though by editing our movie in parts so that the files are smaller and can be saved easier.

Midterm Evaluation

Taking this rhetoric class has been very useful to me. Analyzing the plot of a novel in English class is one thing, however, learning the rhetoric of the content is another. Getting a meaning or an idea across by the way an article is written or the shots a director uses is an art in itself. It is very clever and power as it may persuade a person’s opinion. For example, Wallace’s Up Simba had rhetoric that gave a positive outlook on McCain through its personal writing techniques. This makes rhetoric very useful, especially for me, as I am a film major. I will be taking very complicated film studies courses were content will have to be analyzed. Having a firmer grip on rhetoric, it will defiantly help me. Also, in terms of film production, I can actually use rhetoric in a film of my own by choosing camera shots, angles, etc.
Being a film major automatically makes me have great interest in film. That is why I had such a good time analyzing the films watched. Before, I had never broken a film down so much and I was surprised at how I could do it by myself in my dorm while watching them. This was awesome and was defiantly actively engaging them.
However, I have not been as active as I could have been on both blogs. I defiantly wrote all the necessary entries but was not consistent with it by doing them on my own free will. Although, I was not as active on the Internet, I felt I was in the class, in an uneven way. I think I contributed a lot is some areas, but did not contribute in others. However, when I did, I feel as if I did it well. For some of the topics we talked about, I had a strong opinion on and shared them.
My writing has improved according to the comments given. However, one of my weaknesses and something I can work on is the sophistication of my writing. Also, instead of being so descriptive in my papers, I need to analyze more and explain the rhetoric meaning behind my points. As a thinker, I have it; it is just a question of putting it down on paper in a way that parallels my thoughts, which is something I have always had trouble with. But I think I am getting the hang of it.
There isn’t much to add to this class to make it a better experience form me. I don’t think there is really any other way to teach it, as rhetoric is a very complicated and controversial thing. It needs to have group discussions like we have because keeping our thoughts to ourselves wouldn’t get us very far in knowing what rhetoric is. I have learned a lot, probably most from my peers in the class. In discussions, ideas were brought up that I didn’t even come close to thinking about and have helped me getter a broader outlook on some topics.
Overall, I would give myself a B. I have good participation and am on top of my work and staying organized. Although there are some areas to work on in my RA’s, I feel I have improved greatly on them and have become better. Most importantly, I am an active student and find the areas covered very interesting and not just doing assignments because I have to.

Up, Simba

When Wallace's writing style is compared to what he was talking about in the article, they show to be very similar to each other. It seemed as though he was selling the reader to like McCain as he passionatly describe his time as a POW. This passage is writin in a very informal way as some of the sentences run on and on. It feels as if he writes the same way as he talks and says things like "knifed in the nuts" in stead of using a more apropriate word. Also, he keeps telling the reader to "imagine" for yourself. He does all this to be more personal toward the reader. Wallace wants us to feel closer to him as he describes the facts of the event so that they seem more believable (i'm not saying they are not). When he tells us to imagine, he puts us in McCain's situation to sympathize with more. This writing style really conveys the reader's feelings towards what happened to McCain.

Listening to music in class

So far, the music we've been listening to has been awesome, I even downloaded some of them. However, I find it interesting that with some of the songs we study, we watch the youtube clip that goes along with it. I'm kind of confused why we do this. Anyone can post anything on youtube and the images we saw could have been put together in 5 minutes. I'm not saying there isnt retorical meaning behind them, but we do not know who made them. The meaning and structures of the songs are not connected with the images - Marvin Gaye did not put together the video we watched in class. This isn't true with some of the other people watched like Bob Dylan or Neil Young. With Dylan, we saw him playing on a stage that he was on. All the visuals went with the song. With one of the listenings of Neil Young, we didnt use any visuals and based are opinions purely on sounds. In both these cases, we were able to discuss the rhetoric of the artist's choices and not something a random person made.

Movies we've watched so far

After our current class discussions and going over the scenes from the movies, it has become easier to analyze them. Before this class, I would have called all these films similar to each other based on the fact that they are all about Vietnam. Watching Apocalypse Now by myself, I realized from the first scene that I was able to pick out different things that the director put in there to get an idea across. Because of this, I can say that these three movies are totally different in what they are trying to say and how they are trying to say it. After watching Coppola's surreal style, it occured to me that not only are these films different, they're extremely different. Im curious to find out if any of them affected or inspired one another. I know that Apocalypse Now was done first in 1979 but the other two were done a year apart from each other in '85 and '86. Perhaps Kubrick was inspired by Platoon to go in a totally different direction from it.

Teddy,

The personal blog should be different from the community blog; you don't need to be so academic in your writing; you can make observations about the class, your own learning, what's interesting to you and what's not, what questions you might have, what connections you're making with the real world outside the academy walls, and so forth.