Dear Instructor Letter

                                                                                                            2130 Fulton St,

                                                                                                            San Francisco, CA

                                                                                                            21/8/2014

                                                                                                            Jack English-Cooper

Dear Instructor Letter

Dear Professor Lotspeich

            I think I will succeed in this class because many of the goals seem attainable due to what I have learned thus far. My high school stressed the importance of a strong thesis, powerfull argumentative essays and collaboration in writing. As a result I developed those essential writing skills that will help me perform well in this class. Every year of high school we had a thesis essay which allowed me to progress my ability to write a strong essay. and my ability to write a strong thesis progress every year. After looking over our class assignments, I think that I can utilize that skill to manage the analytical essay well. I have also written countless argumentative essays and feel confident that I can manage our argumentative essay assignment. During my senior year we chose a topic, mine was dystopian novels, read four books that fit our topic, wrote several essays on each and combined them for the final thesis essay. Learning how to combine aspects from several different essays should help me attain the goal of our portfolio assignment. I think I will do well in this class because of the style of learning we will be doing. Studying from graphic novels will be an excellent way to learn since I will be engaged in the text, and it will open my mind to new forms of communication. My feelings of excitement about the style of learning and confidence in managing assingments make me think that I will perform well. However, there are some assignments and aspects of this class that will be difficult for me.

            I think I will struggle with some assignments that I am not familiar with and some of the learning outcomes that I have not yet practiced. In fact this very first assignment challenged me since I was unaware of what an informal letter should resemble, and I am still not confident that I structured it correctly. I am also unfamiliar with writing argumentative letters so it will be difficult for me to write those. I have a few bad habits that will be a challenge to mastering some of the learning outcomes. I am a slow reader so it will be challenging to analyze literature. I also struggle with grammar, which will conficlt with my ability to succeed on essays. I hope I can further develop my reading and writing skills and overcome some of the challenges I have in order to succeed in this class and life.

           

Thank you,

Jack English-Cooper

                                                                                                             

Final Portfolio Introduction

My journey through Rhetoric 110, Written Communication, has been eventful. Over the summer, when I discovered which Rhetoric class I would be in I was disappointed. As Media Studies major I needed to be in Rhetoric 130, in order to take Intro to Media Studies. To my displeasure I was placed into rhetoric 110, based on my SAT score. Not only was I not able to take any classes in my major, but I also felt inferior. I wasn't good enough for myself, and I was worried that I wouldn't learn anything in this lesser class. To my surprise my reading, writing and thinking capabilities greatly developed in this class. I learned new aspects that will make my writing more successful such as using ethos, logos and pathos. My abilities as a reader developed so that I was able to analyze, interpret and utilize information from readings and images more successfully. Even my thinking developed so that I changed my attitude and saw how important doing well and being responsible in college is. I will guide my audience through my journey by explaining how I developed as a reader, writer and thinker, so that my classmates can think about how this class impacted them and my instructor can understand what about this class taught me the most.

                            My progression as a reader

Reading is an enormous part of life, especially in college. At the beginning of the semester I would consider my self a slow reader. I still consider myself a slow reader at the end of this semester. However, there were some areas of my reading abilities that needed and attained development after finishing rhetoric 110. I had room to expand my ability to analyze and extract important information from the text. I had never before needed to read and interpret new forms of communication such as graphic novels. I began this class without these skills but the lessons we learned in class and through my challenges and successes I was able to develop these reading skills.

            The materials we covered for homework and the in class explanations helped me progress into a better reader. This class taught me that the best way to analyze is to split apart the text and closely examine certain parts to discover exactly what they mean. Knowing exactly what it means and what I am supposed to do helped me analyze everything I read better. The professors reiteration of how to analyze and all the practice I got in class enabled me to better analyze and extract useful evidence from everything I read. 

     This class did an excellent job of exposing me to new forms of communication such as graphic novels. Through my challenges and successes working with graphic novels and using them to maintain my portfolio, I developed the ability to read graphic communication. I found I was successful with maintaining my portfolio when it came to writing posts. In one of the assigned posts I was asked to find rhetorical tools in Batman The Dark Knight Returns. As you can see in this post I was able to locate and note how logos, ethos, pathos and kairos were used in the images and text of Batman. Being asked to identify specific aspects of the graphic novel helped me develop so that I can easily find rhetorical tools in images as well as text. I had more success with that post than I expected which proved to me that examining pictures and text separately was my strength. Despite this triumph, I still found it difficult to understand what was happening most of the time when reading Batman. I learned that I was challenged by the way the book combined both media and writing to explain what was happening. I learned that the best way for me to read graphic novels is to first analyze the pictures and writing separately, then piece together what the book is saying. Acknowledging my strengths and weaknesses helped me progress so that I developed my own way of reading graphic novels. I now know for the future that when I am asked to read new forms of communication, I can do so by discovering what my strengths and weaknesses are.

     I am leaving Rhetoric 110 with reading capabilities that will aid me throughout my college career and life. I have become a better analyzer by separating parts of the text to analyze sections more thoroughly and find useful information. I am also able to use my new analyzing skills when interpreting images, which is a very realistic part of the real world. Adults are always asked to understand all kinds of communication like television or newspapers. Rhetoric 110 gave me the skills I need to read and analyze pictures along with words, and showed me how I can always teach myself how to read new forms of communication.

My progression as a writer

            When I started this class I thought I knew everything there was to know about writing. After finishing my senior year I thought I was a great writer and didn't imagine that there was more to learn about writing. In my dear instructor letter I talked about how I thought I would have an easy time with argumentative essays but a harder time with the new material. I soon discovered that I was completely wrong. As I journeyed through this class I became a better writer from the lessons I learned in class, working with my collaborative group and revising my major writing assignment.

To my surprise I learned a lot of new writing techniques that I now utilize to communicate my ideas more successfully. One of the first lessons I learned in Rhetoric class was the rhetorical moves ethos logos and pathos. These were new concepts to me, but I learned them quickly. After we discussed them in class we wrote a post about how we used them. I feel that I had a very good understanding of what they were, when I wrote about how I used the rhetorical moves.

As I learned more about rhetorical tools in class I was able to comprehend how these tools made the writings so powerful, as I did in my reaction to Douglass's narrative. I was then able to inhibit these moves into my writing. In my Personal Letter I mastered the use of ethos, logos, and pathos. The fact that I had never heard of these terms before this class but was able to use them so effectively in my paper shows how much I have progressed.

Collaborating with my group this semester developed me into a better writer. My role in the group was a collaborator. This meant that I was in charge of working on the daily exercises we were given. This allowed me to solely delve into the exercises, which pushed my writing abilities. Everyday we were asked to get into our groups and do assignments that reviewed the lesson on writing we had learned. When we learned about what a naysayer is and how using naysayers helps prove your point, we were asked to create a naysayer. In this exercise, I as the collaborator put in a lot of effort to create an excellent naysayer. I am a hands on learner so being asked to do the writing tool helps me learn it. Working with my group members also helped me since their contributions to our exercise showed me new ways of looking at the writing methods.

Another big part of the collaborative group was editing each other’s papers. This continuous peer editing had a major effect in my development as a writer. Hearing my peer’s feedback on all of my papers taught me what I needed to work on and what I was good at. Hearing what I needed to improve on in every single one of my papers this semester allowed me to retain that information and ensure that I did not repeat the same mistakes. Specifically, in the collection of argumentative letters I was struggling with writing Martin Luther King's letters in his personas. The feedback I got on my draft from my editors helped me understand how to write in different personas. When my editor pointed out how I should have an introduction for every letter and how I should make Martin Luther King's letters not sound like reflections, I gained a better understanding of how to write a collection of letters. Editing my group members papers and seeing how they wrote also helped me since it gave me insight to other styles of writing. Peer editing with my group so extensively made me develop into a better writer and learn the importance of collaboration.

Through ought this class I tackled many essays I was unfamiliar with. I had never before written an informal letter for school, a review on someone else’s text or a collection of argumentative letters in which I had to write as someone else. I was nervous for these new papers but I learned how to write them and successfully wrote all of these assignments. The only paper I was not nervous for was the argumentative essay because I had written many thesis essays in High School. I found that it was far more difficult than I thought. When I finished the first version of this essay I thought that it was good enough. I realized that I needed more progression as a writer from the feedback I got from my teacher. After taking my instructors advice into consideration and recreating my argumentative essay I am confident that I developed the writing skills we learned this semester. Revising my essay made me conscious of my writing flaws. I realized that there were several times I failed to use the correct subject and had vague pronouns. Fixing these mistakes taught me how to write proper pronouns and subjects for my future papers. I also understand the advice to break my paragraphs up more by topics. Seeing how much stronger my paper was with more paragraph breaks when the topic changed made me realize how I need to continue to write in that way. I became aware with how I failed to provide the who cares several times which made me realize how the who cares has been a weakness of mine since writing thesis essays in high school. Addressing this problem by forcing myself to create a who cares made it so I now comprehend the importance of who cares and feel confident that I can write it for all of my essays to come. Revising this essay and working out my issues helped me develop so that I know poses all of the writing strategies I lacked in the first draft. My new revised essay proves that I understand how to correctly write subject and pronouns, keep paragraphs on one topic and can address the who cares. These and the other skills I learned in Rhetoric class will stay with me for the rest of my writing career and have developed me into a stronger communicator.

 My Progression as a Thinker

 Starting College is a difficult adventure. That is why Rhetoric 110 being one of my first classes was so significant. Not only did this class expose me to new forms of communicating and educate me on more professional ways of writing, but I also learned how to navigate college through going through this class as a test run. For me, all the college stress results in myself neglecting responsibilities when it seemed like I could. Rhetoric 110 Written Communication as one of my first classes had a drastic effect in how I developed over the semester. While enhancing my reading and writing abilities was useful for college, developing myself as a thinker was what really prepared me for college and life. I faced both challenges and triumphs while completing my portfolio, major writing assignments and final portfolio, that helped me progress as a thinker.

I found success during my major writing assignments when I doubted myself but was encouraged by the writing tutors that I had written strong essays. During my Personal Letter drafting process I was worried that I didn't have enough ethos or logos. When I brought my paper in my tutor loved it. He showed me how I did in fact use logos and ethos effectively throughout the paper. He explained to me my strengths as a writer as well as what I needed to work on. When I wrote my Analytical Review paper I was terrified that I was writing it wrong. I was confused with the structure and thought that my paper was horrible. When I brought that paper into the writing lab I was yet again happily surprised to here that what I doubted was actually successful. He explained to me how the structure I was using was effective, and helped me plan how I was going to finish the paper. He told me how much he liked my writing style and how successful it was. Hearing that my papers were better then I thought they were and that I was a good writer was influential. I became confident in myself and started taking more joy out of writing. I as a thinker developed into someone who truly enjoys writing and takes pride in my work. Before I would get distraught that I had no idea what I was doing, and had a hard time getting into my papers. Now I am confident in myself and think of writing as an essential form of communicating in which I must practice.

   Throughout this course I discovered that I was challenged more by myself than by the assignments. I was challenged by my procrastination. During the reading assignments, I found myself procrastinating until the last minute to do them. I would skim and sometimes skip major sections of my readings. This made it harder for me to learn the lessons and maintain my working portfolio, which required portfolio posts about the readings. I also struggled with procrastination during my major writing assignments. I kept finding myself waiting until the last day to finish them and not giving myself sufficient time to edit. This resulted in my writing not being my best work. Not only did I struggle with procrastinating but with upholding my responsibilities as well.

     I was overwhelmed by the stress of college, which led to my letting go of responsibilities. My continuing to be late for class challenged me by hurting my grade. I was also irresponsible when it came to maintain my final portfolio. I should have started earlier and received more help with it, but instead I couldn’t help but procrastinate and not get a sufficient amount of help organizing it.

     Both my procrastination and irresponsibility mad college life harder and made me less successful. However, I have learned from my mistakes. In the end of the semester I developed as a thinker so that I began taking my education far more seriously. I started making sure I was on time every day and stopped procrastinating as hard as before. While I still struggled with procrastination I forced myself to go to the library and work on some of my portfolio with sufficient time so that I could edit and make my final portfolio perfect. My thought process progressed so that I now know that I struggle with time management and tardiness, and do my best to not fall victim to myself again. I now appreciate my education and think of myself as an academic whose only job is to excel in school and take meaningful understandings from my classes. 

As you can tell, my journey through this class has been riddled with events that will shape me forever. I have learned how to correctly analyze text and read image-based communication. I developed into a stronger writer by learning the fundamental rhetorical moves and understanding my weaknesses. I changed my thinking so that I am more confident about my writing and strive to get the most out of school by being a responsible student. I hope to continue developing throughout college. I want to extend my strategic reading abilities as well as learn how to read many more new forms of communication. I now know that there is far more for me to learn about writing and hope that I will progress into an even stronger writer. Now that my thinking has changed so that I see the importance of school, I want to develop my thinking abilities further to comprehend all of what life has to offer.

Self evaluation:

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Argumentative Essay Revised

Jack English-Cooper

Rhetoric 110 Written Communication

Argumentative Essay 1937 words

December 7, 2014

                                   

                                    Graphic Novels: For Children Or For College Students?

Whether reading graphic novels in a college composition class is a waste of time or a useful form of learning is being wildly discussed around academic administrations. Most academics are under the impression that comic books are for children and therefore a waste of time for college students to read. I disagree. As a college student who has recently analyzed the graphic novel Batman: The Dark Night Returns by Frank Miller, and has read several articles on this debate, I know that graphic novels are incredibly beneficial for student’s development in the classroom. By analyzing graphic novels, students become engaged in the interesting story, which exposes them to communication through images, allowing them to better comprehend rhetorical devices such as ethos, logos, and pathos and ways to address social injustice. In order to prove that graphic novels are beneficial, I will give my personal experiences, show specific examples from the graphic novel, Batman, and back up my arguments with evidence from other scholarly articles. Comic-Con International should head my advice because it is essential that colleges utilize this type of learning since it could change the education system completely.

One of the most important aspects of learning in composition classes is being fully engaged with the readings. According to Askin Yildirim, critics think, “many teachers and scholars... argue that graphic novels can only be regarded as a free time activity that must be kept out of the classroom” (6). These critics are under the false impression that students can’t have fun while they read. But in actuality, when students enjoy the reading they can become more engaged with it. Students like myself struggle to give assigned readings enough attention and focus. Most students feel over worked and skim or barely read the readings. The solution to student’s incompletion of readings is to give the reader more than just words. Graphic novels create a story with pictures and words, in turn grabbing the student’s attention by making it more fantastic and interesting. Clearly this is more productive for learning. When I was assigned the graphic novel, Batman, I found myself sucked into the reading due to the story being brought to life by the images. Askin Yildirim is an agreement that, “Graphic novels can be a source of motivation and stimulation for learners with reading difficulties and with those who are reluctant to be involved in reading activities” (2). Students’ engagement with the reading is essential and graphic novels use of images provides stimulation fort the students. Exploring how Frank Miller utilizes images reveals how pictures are a source of stimulation.

The way Frank Miller depicts the scene of Batman defeating his enemies proves how motivating and stimulating graphic novels can be. There are first several panels with images of the enemies waiting and preparing for the Batman, in which the Batman’s hand becomes periodically easier to see as the panels are read left to right. The last panel in the line displays a picture of someone flying through the air. (38). When the reader see’s the hand becoming larger they are motivated to keep reading since it is hinted that it will end with the Batman flipping the enemy. The reader is stimulated when instead of just reading that the enemy was flipped, they see the bad guy get tossed in the air just as they imagined it.  Engrossing students in the reading is just as essential for being successful as familiarizing them to new forms of imagery communication in preparation for reality.

The way comic books combine images and words is similar to how the majority of the real world communicates, which is why they are so practical for students in composition classes. Unlike how students are asked to read and analyze novels or textbooks, which only use words, adults usually have to gather their information from the newspaper, television news and websites. Newspapers are displayed much like graphic novels, with images and words to communicate what happened. Television, also similar, is composed of moving pictures and audio that relay the message. Graphic novels expose people to these types of communication since the reader must interpret both the images and text. To understand the panel of the Jokers threat in page 125 of Batman The Dark Knight Returns, the reader must read his dialogue in which he threatens to kill everyone in the room as well as view the image to see how he is referring to a huge crowd and about to commit a mass murder. Analyzing both aspects allows the reader to comprehend how horrific the Jokers action will be if the Batman does not interfere. Teaching students how to analyze graphic communication will enable them to do this for the rest of their lives, which is why it is essential for students to study graphic novels in school.

By learning how to interpret messages from images and being able to be deeply enthralled with the reading students in composition classrooms can better explore rhetorical tools such as pathos. As Yildirim states, “Research indicates that ability to visualize a concept is an important step that leads students to go further in the mastery of comprehension skills” (10), which is why when I was exposed to the picture aspect of communication, I was able to extract more meaning out of the pathos. When Batman plots his revenge on the joker and says, “I’ll count the dead one by one… I’ll add them to the list Joker… The list of all the people I’ve MURDERED… By letting you live” (117), Frank Miller is creating the pathos of making the reader feel empathetic and impressed with how upset and determined Batman is. The visual of the Batman looking furious and determined and the image’s color of red help’s the audience explore the pathos further. This gives readers the impression that he is livid and hates injustice so exponentially that he is willing to become violent in order to stop it. The red depiction of Batman also makes readers sympathetic to how hurt he is that he is driven to a thirst for violence. 

Not only is pathos able to be explored but graphic novels also enable more meaning to be drawn from ethos due to how absorbed the reader is. When the reader is focused on the reading they are able to take notice of how ethos is used to set up the credibility and enable the protagonist to succeed. When the commissioner realizes that Batman is fighting for the greater good she allows him to freely fight and succeed (176). Analyzing the image of how the commissioner looks at Batman as she allows him to do his job, and with the readers full engagement in the novel, the reader is able to understand how this is ethos in use through giving Batman credit.  Even logos can be explored in college classes through graphic novels.

The reader’s exploration of logos through the new form of picture communication will help students in the classroom and life. Through analyzing an image, the reader can see how the protagonist creates logical arguments and visually observe the steps. When Batman explains how guns are the weapons of the enemy, there is an image of him breaking a shotgun with ease (173). This image allows the reader to analyze the logos deeper and find symbolic meaning such as how true spirit overpowers mindless weapons. The way graphic novels teach students to analyze these rhetorical moves will aid students in the real world when they need to find or create pathos, ethos, and logos in picture based communication. Besides rhetoric skills, graphic novels also allow students to examine social injustice and how to deal with it.

Students can explore many different forms of social injustice, ways to deal with it and discover their own opinions due to their higher level of interest in graphic novels. When student’s become more excited by the story they look closer at the pictures and the dialogue in order to reap more meaning from the story. They are able to notice details such as relationships when David Heineman points out, “homosexual relationships are often portrayed as mutually-loving and nursing, in a sharp contrast to heterosexual relationships in magna, which depict relationships as male-centered and, at times, abusive” (1). He is referring to how Magna, a Japanese comic, deals with the injustice of homosexuals being treated unfairly, by making homosexual relationships seem better than heterosexual ones. As the students are more engaged in the reading they can pick up on this and explore how the author deals with social injustice. 

Students also can examine social injustice through analyzing the new form of picture communication. As Yildirim says, “Graphic novels rich in visual media enable students to develop more sophisticated cognitive strategies” (9). When analyzing images, students learn more intellectual skills to understand the idea. When students examine the image of Batman leading the group of mutants on horseback (182), they form new ideas about social injustice along with new ways of thinking. The observer explores the idea Frank Miller is sharing that the common citizen should do their part to deal with social injustice just as Batman and the mutants. The idea is developed through seeing the horses and realizing it is a symbol for being average citizens fighting for justice as opposed to depending on the government who has more advanced methods of transportation. In order to really explore ways to deal with social injustice, the graphic novel grabs the reader’s attention making them relate the story to their world and see the characters as real people. The readers are obviously on the protagonist’s side; therefore, they believe that the Joker, who is a mass murder, should die. Mark White and Robert Arp bring up the good point that, “if we say that Batman should kill the Joker, doesn’t that imply that we should torture terror suspects” (2). This is the idea that comes up after the reader closely examines the text and thinks about it. The reader first thought that the Joker should die, but after looking at the idea in context with how their government deals with criminals, they began to think about how they would deal with social injustice. Graphic novels ability to engage the reader in a personal way allows the reader to discover how they really feel about how to deal with social injustice.

The comic books every kid reads when they are little are productive readings for college students. Through graphic novels exciting pictures and dialogue they draw the reader in allowing them to reap more meaning from the rhetoric tools, examine the character dynamics closer, and compare the ways social injustice is dealt with in the real world so they can develop their own opinions. The exposure of a new form of communicating through images is far more realistic since it is how the real world communicates. This in turn allows readers to find rhetoric tools and deeper meanings from images, learn how to understand the message the picture is revealing, and develop the students ability to analyze picture communication for their adult lives. Graphic novels although childish, are excellent ways to explore communication and should be seen as a strong literary learning device for college students. The Comic-con International should now understand how vital graphic novels are and accept them into composition classes. Allowing the study of graphic novels in college classrooms is just the beginning of a breakthrough in academia. There are many more useful forms of educating college students that must be sought out in order to really progress education.

            Works Cited:

Yildirim, Askin. "Using Graphic Novels in the Classroom." Dil Ve Edebiyat Egitimi Dergisi. 2013, Vol. 2 Issue 8, P118-131, 14p, 1 Dec. 2013. Web. 10 Nov. 2014.

Heinman, David. "Graphic Novels." SAGE Knowledge (2012): 151-52. SAGE Knowledge. Web. 11 Nov. 2014. <http://knowledge.sagepub.com/view/genderinmedia/n64.xml>.

White, Mark D., and Robert Arp. "Should Batman Kill The Joker." New York Times. New York Times, 25 July 2008. Web. 11 Nov. 2014.

Jack English-Cooper

Rhetoric 110 Written Communication

Argumentative Essay: Dear Reader 248 words

November 14, 2014

                                   

            Dear Reader

1) My goal was to slow down when reading. I have done this. Reading Batman forced me to slow down in order to interpret the images. I have worked to do this more with the researching part by analyzing details more closely.

2) My goal was to outline earlier. I worked toward this by trying to figure out the outline before jumping in. I did not reach this goal as much as I wanted. Instead I started writing and when I was not sure I outlined what I would wright about in the essay.

3) My goal for writing was to do more free writing. I have done so with this essay through writing from my mind more before editing. This heeled me get my ideas down.

4) I wanted to get better at making sure my argument fits the prompt. I did this better here as I always focused my argument on the prompt. I wish I could have created more of a central argument, and I will work more towards that.

5) For my final I want to revise this essay. I think I can push this essay to the next level and it will help my learning process. Since this essay is a bout new form of communication, looking deeper into it will teach me more life goals.

6) Developed Well-developed developed developed in progress well developed developed developed