Sunday, February 13, 2011
Project One
By now, you are basically done with project one, so this is where I give you the space to discuss how you feel about the project. Did you love it, hate it, didn't feel one way or the other, was it meaningful, useless? Don't be afraid to be honest, there won't be any repercussions if you didn't like the project and negative feedback has been used to improve projects in the past. As usual, 250 word post up by Thursday night and 100 word response up by Sunday night.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
As with any other project I try not to get too emotionally tied. It still happens though and really got into it as I picked a topic that I was really into. It did however, look at first as though there were no clear argument for a side and seemed just to spurt out facts about lunar legality or other scientific discovery about the moon. Once dissecting the articles, I found the underlying argument each author made with their articles using the techniques kyros, logos, ethos, and pathos. From this, I think a valuable lesson has been learned that one can make a convincing argument without the reader ever suspecting that you are manipulating their opinion on an issue. If you can master this, you have the power to successfully rally large amounts of people to an idea with words. In speaking you are able to open new possibilities, get something done, or persuade others to side with a cause. So with that, the project has opened new doors of possibility to expand my writing technique. On the other hand, analyzing other author's writing technique is only one slice of the pie. I would have like to have analyzed their techniques but also write using these techniques on our side of the argument. Writing to see if the author did a convincing job on proving their side of the story only allows a person to see how they are pandering to your emotions.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I did not mind researching my topic and writing up the annotations of the rhetorical uses of each article. I found that I learned a lot about how writers, authors, movie producers, etc. use rhetoric to sway the opposition, or unknowing, to their side of an argument. I found it interesting though, that throughout my research, pathos was the most prevalent used rhetorical strategy. I have a theory for why that is. Not everyone in the world is educated. Not everyone in the world has the best sense of logic. But mostly everyone feels emotions. What better way to pose an argument, then to put it out to the general public. I have an example, when watching a movie in which there are battles on horses, notice how no one really feels bad for the human dying on the horse, but when the horse is shot, mostly everyone says “awwwwwwwww poor horse”. This is just a simple example of how the general public leans towards emotion. Now if I were to adopt that idea into my stem cell argument, I would say, “there is a way to save peoples lives without killing embryos.” This statement plays to both sides of the argument and uses the emotions felt when you are saving essentially two peoples lives. On the other hand, I did not like the reflective essay, I felt like it was just a repeat of the annotations I did earlier, even thought he prompt was different, it dragged on was I felt as if it was stupid to write it. Overall though, I did not mind project one.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteProject 1 was not that bad at all. I enjoyed learning more about my topic because the topic is something that I love to do on a daily basis. I had a lot of trouble with the annotations and I am glad that is over with because it took me several tries to try and get that right. Now on the essay, I am still struggling a bit, but I am trying to analyze the rhetorical devices in depth a little more and explain how they add to the source's argument. The interpretation aspect of that is probably the most difficult to me solely because I am not fully understanding these rhetorical devices too well. Yes I understand them but I do not understand them to their full potential. That is the only reason why this project was so difficult to me. 1101 taught me a lot about these devices and for some reason, I just cannot fully grasp the idea. I understand that the source needs to have some credibility, as well as logic, and emotion, but just writing about how they use those things and why they use them is the hard part. Plus I am not that good of a writer so that doesn't hep too much. But to say the least, the project was not that bad and I actually enjoyed it to an extent just because of the topic that I chose. I believe that every project should be done on something you enjoy or it just becomes another chore. Nobody likes those.
ReplyDeleteProject One was a project that I really felt absolutely nothing for. I did not hate it or like it, it was pretty much just an assignment that I needed to do. In high school and during last semester I did so many annotated bibliographies that by now they are just engrained into my brain. Although this annotated bibliography was of a slightly different format and not the traditional summary and response format, it was still just an analyses of the source and the author of that source. Besides the annotated bibliography which constituted most of the grade, the actual paper was very similar. The paper was supposed to analyze two of the sources in our annotated bibliography and how the author uses ethos, logos, pathos, and kairos to get their point across. I found this incredibly similar to the format of the annotated bibliography and only slightly changed how I wrote my paper from my annotated bibliography. Overall the project was not very difficult because I had done much of the same formats of papers before. My topic, while somewhat interesting, is a topic that I have had experience with before. So, while the arguments posed by the authors were interesting, much of the information they used to make their arguments was information that I had heard before. While this is completely my doing because I was the one that chose the topic, I simply found this project neither good or bad, but just another assignment.
ReplyDelete@Eric- I found your theory on pathos very interesting and could not agree more. Every person has some sort of emotion, so appealing to the people's emotion is naturally the best way to persuade. Also, I agree that the reflective essay seemed like a waste of time. I also felt that it was a regurgitation of the same information given in the annotated bibliography. I felt the same way about the assignment as well in that it is just another assignment and I did not really mind writing the paper, it was just a little boring and redundant.
ReplyDeleteAt times I found project one very complex. I did not fully understand what we were supposed to be doing and how I should approach it. I spent a few days wondering how to even start the essay and I still think it isn't the best it could be. While writing the essay though, it hit me on what to do. I saw that for one of my articles I shouldn't have been analyzing what he wrote but on what he wrote about. A news reporter normally isn't supposed to be biases or take any sides, but who they write about can have sides.
ReplyDeleteI found it very useful in setting ground work for the future projects that we have set ahead for us in the class. It was very helpful to have a starter project to get familiarized with rhetorical strategies and analyzing arguments.
I love that you gave us the freedom to write on a topic we choose because it opens our minds to something we love. I would do research any day on something that I love to watch, play, and follow. It makes doing work for this class much more fun to do and makes us more attentive to our work. Personally I learn more if I'm enjoying the work that I am doing. Nobody loves to have to do work and it definitely takes a certain love to actually like writing papers, but this is a class where we are expected to learn. I'm happy that our forced learning is going to be on subjects that we enjoy and have a passion for.
The only thing I can think about being done with Project One is the fact that I'm done with it! No it wasn't a terrible project, I think what the professor was asking for was pretty straight forward. Not to mention the amount of time we received. I liked project one I didn't completely fried my brain over it. I took the advantage to make it a compare and contrast paper out of the four sources. The only thing I didn't get was why we had to have four sources when we were going to only write about two? Oh well I don't make the rules, I just follow them. This was the first time we really looked at what where the rhetorical techniques in depth. It did help me because it gav eme the idea on what I had to look for and write about. Now I'm more anxious to move on to Project Two because that means we are one step closer to being finished with Comp.2. I do feel like I am getting better with my writing from all this practice. I think the only reason why I was in to the project was because I got to choose a topic that really interested me and it was a topic I had previous knowledge about and I always wanted to look into it. Project One also helped me not procrastinate and turn things in on time! Minus one assignment that was missing (peer review). Besides that little flaw, the time that was given helped me plan things out. I was actually a weeks worth of work ahead of schedule and was able to review my paper one last time to make it a good paper. I feel pretty confident in this assignment, but you never know. Practice makes perfect. (:
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAccording to urbandictionary.com, meh is “the verbal equivalent of a shrug of the shoulders."
ReplyDeleteProject One was one big meh for me. It was nothing special because my professor last year had a big case of the confusions and he thought we were one of his 1102 classes. He would still assign us the 1101 projects when he realized who we were, but he would always go on about ethos, pathos, logos, and how we should always look out for these rhetorical strategies whenever we read something (a valid point); he essentially taught half the 1102 curriculum but still managed to rant about historiographies and Bob Dylan (don’t get me wrong, I love Dylan, I just thought it was funny when he veered off course). I suppose that this project was instrumental in helping research more about the healthcare debate, and I do admit that it changed my mind on some aspects of the it. But, at heart I’m still a raging socialist (oh no!) and I still would like to see universal healthcare in the U.S. some day. The biggest reason why this project was one big meh is the fact that I wrote a six god damned page paper about the merits of socialized medicine in the United States, and how some of the arguments used proved nothing against the movement. Then I realized (at the last minute of course) that I analyzed the wrong thing… So I had to REWRITE THE WHOLE THING; when I say rewrite, I don’t mean edit, I mean command+a, delete. So, meh to project one.
Project one was different from any paper I have done in the past. What made it different was the fact that using Ethos, Pathos, Logos, and Kairos was the main focal point. I must say it has its pros and cons. What I really enjoyed about it is that those Rhetorical devices can be used in all papers that are written in the future. They help understand and break down the source to see the true meaning behind it. What I did not like about this project one is that it was harder to describe these Rhetorical devices when I started the paper. It really made me think a lot more than usual when writing a paper. Which really is not a bad thing but, for me writing is very simple and this project really pushed my thinking. Something that I would have been able to do more in this paper is to elaborate more on the topic. The paper was supposed to be 3 pages but I would not of mind a four to five page paper allowing me to talk about my topic and provide more background information. This helps me gather my thoughts and have a more organized paper. The best part about the paper was that I did really learn a lot about my writing. This paper showed me things I struggled on and what I was able to do well. I am glad we did this project and it will allow me to improve on my future writings.
ReplyDeleteProject one was a good researching experience. I liked the idea of project one, because it let me investigate something that I was already fairly knowledgeable about, and look into it deeper, come up with more facts, and form a stronger argument just for when I’m out discussing this with my friends. It was a little confusing at first getting started. I was slightly unclear exactly how I was supposed to approach my articles, whether I was supposed to find everything for the same argument, or things from both sides. Once I was clearer on just finding the articles, advertisements, and what not I took off because my topic had so much information on it. Writing the actual annotations was a little tricky, I think everyone was a little confused as to how we were supposed to incorporate ethos, pathos, logos and kairos into the annotations. I know I was definitely a little confused as to whether I was to address them directly, or just incorporate them if I found it appropriate. Once the annotations were reviewed by Mr. Breckenridge that was all cleared up, and it was easy to revise my first draft. For the expository essay, I took notes in class on what we were supposed to do, but I was really lost while I was writing it. I feel like that is something that we really could have used written directions, and maybe a clear example of what a good paper looks like.
ReplyDelete@Daniella:
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking the same thing you are, that above all, I'm done with it. I also don't understand why we had to do four annotations instead of just the two the final paper was on, but if I had to guess, it was probably to give us room to choose the ones we felt more confident about. I don't feel very optimistic about this assignment like you do, mostly because the last time I wrote any kind of papers was for the AP English Literature exam, and those essays were very, very easy, so... My writing skills are more than likely sub par compared to college level writing skills. I expect to get a C, even though I tried so hard to improve my paper...
(I totally missed the Thursday deadline...)
- Astrid
Project one was pretty interesting; I didn't hate it, but I didn't exactly love it either. I hadn't done research or any type of analysis in a while (since junior year in high school, I think), so that was sort of a challenge for me, as well as the whole annotated bibliography thing. I don't remember ever writing one of those, so this was a first, and I had to go through a lot of asking in order to get the whole concept together. I didn't even get the MLA format right for the first draft, but that's mostly because I really wanted to avoid it. I hate having to double space. I liked that I got to go over the meanings of ethos, pathos, and logos which I had long forgotten about, and also that I got a chance to work with them more, because when I first learned about them it was just a brief explanation from my AP lang. teacher. With project one I realized that pretty much all media implies these rhetorical devices, and it can be a bit difficult to spot them since they all kind of tie together.
ReplyDeleteAs for the essay, it was definitely reflective… I felt like I was writing the same things I wrote in my annotations, except that I actually found more to analyze and I noticed a few things in my sources that I hadn't noticed before. (Maybe that was one of the purposes of the essay?)
So I can’t complain about the project, it was something different for me.
How did I feel about project one? Well to be absolutely honest I have absolutely no special feelings for project one. I treated it like any other project I have done. The most I can say is that I still don’t understand the concept of kairos. This may be because this is the first time I’m being introduced to the rhetorical technique and I still haven’t grasped the full concept. I really don’t understand the application, which is why it’s nowhere in my paper, but hopefully it will come to me later. I don’t feel as it was useless though because I have been doing annotated bibliographies since high school and each time I do them I think I improve on how to do my annotations. Plus each teacher wants different points mentioned in their annotations. So each time I do an annotated bibliography there is some sort of new twist on it. As far as the overall concept o the project, it was okay. There was nothing that necessarily sparked my interest but I guess that depends on the topic that you choose. It was a little hard for me to come up with a topic and when I did come up with one I was excited. However the project drained my excitement a bit. There was no spark in the project that made me excited to complete it or start it. At the end of the day this is not something that I will look back on and say it has affected my college experience significantly.
ReplyDeleteMy emotion towards Project One was a positive one. I was kind of upset that multiple people picked my topic, but my first topic was too broad so I had to narrow it down. I actually wanted to change my topic to something that I have a deep interest for but I decided not to. I don't know if that was the best option. I felt that I probably would've enjoyed Project One more if I had done so. Overall, as a whole, I enjoyed writing the Annotated Bibliographies and I definitely liked how they were structured with Ethos/Pathos/Logos/Kairos. In Comp 1101 the Bibliographies were just plain boring because you had to write a summary about it and then just describe why you think it was credible. I am happy now that I am done with Project One and I feel Project Two will be much more interesting because I get to pick a movie that interests me. I just don't want to see the other side of the Rogerian argument though. That will be tough because I hate the other side. Besides that, overall I felt Project One was much better than my experience in Comp 1101 which was a major plus for me and I hope that Project Two will be even better.
ReplyDelete@Ryan:
ReplyDeleteI was definitely confused in the beginning as well. I actually had no idea what I was supposed to be doing,and I thought it sucked that I had to go research what an annotated bibliography was supposed to look like. but once I got the idea and started the project, I also enjoyed learning that ethos, pathos, and logos can be incorporated into any type of writing and that it really helps to understand the purpose and argument of a paper.
I agree with you on the essay thing; we could have used some more directions or an example (I love examples!) even the directions that were given were pretty much straightforward. I think we might have over-thought it.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteProject one was a good project and I researched it making the project a lot more fun. At first I was thinking how could an essay be a project, then we had a lot of steps to cover the material. After doing the first two drafts, I wanted the project to be over with. One thing I get sick of is drafts, and there were a lot for this project. I think the last time I did drafts was sophomore year. The project was a lot different from others I have seen. Throughout the project I learned the value of drafts, because without them I would have not done well on the paper. Because of Drafts I actually have a chance at doing well in the class. MLA format was another thing I had to go over, because I have not been over the MLA format in a long time. Overall this project was useful in that I learned how to look at different opinions and not be affected by them. A major thing with opinions is that some people take other’s comments and take their comments personally whereas they should just analyze them. So far I am enjoying this class and I hope we learn things and learn how to apply opinions to a paper or a comment. Learning such things can help me do better on the next project because instead of having a bland emotion about a comment, I can analyze the comment with a reasoning as to why the author chose those words for his comment and such.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI am not a big fan of these projects, but somehow I did not hate this one as much. Project one was a good exercise for my writing, which has probably decreased a lot since last year when I took my Composition one class. I had never heard the terms ethos, pathos, logos or kairos before the professor mentioned them in class, and when most of the people in the class said that they had learned about them in Comp. one I thought I was going to have a big problem.
ReplyDeleteIt turned out to be a very simple project. I really liked the fact that we were able to turn in a draft at first, so that the professor could give us comments on how to improve it for the final draft. Since I was not so sure on how to write an essay using rhetorical devices this project was a lot of help. The only think that I did not enjoy about this project was the fact that it took me forever to find a good picture to use as one of the sources. I think it would be better if students were allowed to use articles for all four sources. There are thousands of pictures of the Mexican drug war but it took me a good amount of time before I could find a good one. Finally, I want to say that I’m very happy that I’m done with the first project and that I am actually looking forward to the next one, which should be very interesting.
Project one was not enjoyable at all. I do not hate it 100% but I just really do not like things that bore me to death and all project one did for me was use up the majority of my time. The other projects from last semester did not take long to do but this one had so much work and so much ink paper to use up for my printer. I wish my topic could have been more fun but I was not sure what topic to do. Although it was boring it was also informative on what is happening in the Middle East. It was still boring because a couple of times my friends would go out and do something fun while I had to be either at the library or in my dorm finishing it and when I am actually done with my work everybody just wants to sleep. This project pretty much deprived me from fun, picture moments with my friends because I told myself that school is priority. I feel relieved that I do not have to write an essay soon and just chill out and I love to savor the moment of having much more free time now. Now I can worry about my other major subjects like math and chemistry because they are getting harder and harder and the most important part is that my weekend it going to be so much more fun. The second important part is that I am also going to get more sleep :)
ReplyDeleteLike all projects, project one was just another assignment that had to be done so I did not enjoy it but I did learn many things from it. This project helped me learn the true meanings of ethos, pathos, logos and kairos of which I had never heard of or used before this class. It showed me that in order for a news article, video, political cartoon or any other form of media to be successful it has to use all of these rhetorical devices effectively. Once I had learned the meanings I began to understand the way that the authors use these rhetorical devices in order to make their work more interesting so that more people will want to know more about it. In addition, this assignment helped me learn how to correctly write an annotated bibliography, analyze my sources, how to research my topic, how to use the MLA format and most importantly that it is always best to make a shitty first draft and to just keep on improving it. The only part of this project that I found to be completely useless was the reflective analyses because it was basically a repeat of the annotated bibliography. Overall the directions for project one was very straightforward but I would have found it easier to do if I was given examples. Even though that I found this project just like another chore to do, I did learn many things that I am positive will help me throughout my college career.
ReplyDeleteProject one to me seemed to be a lot like project one from 1101, pretty much analyzing sources. The only difference between the two is that we did not summarize what the article was about, but we still analyzed the source for ethos, pathos, logos, kairos. I had nothing wrong with the project personally, but I felt like I was repeating myself a lot in some parts of my annotations, it seems as if I was just bringing up the same arguments over and over again. Then when I wrote my essay, I think I pretty much wrote the same exact things that were said about in my annotations. I mean I see how the project is suppose to make you learn how to seek out the sources for their credibility and whether they present valid points in their arguments, this is good because it helps you learn to do better research and find good sources other than Wikipedia. One thing that I like the most is how we were able to pick our own topic so we can look up topics that interest us, instead of something boring and we could care less about. I feel that project one would be better to do if we had to do more on taking the points used in our sources to talk about what side we take on the argument; this can be done during the essay. Other than that I feel like project one was not something I hated doing nor did I like doing it, but it just seemed like the usually writing projects that are given for English classes.
ReplyDelete@ttroyer
ReplyDeleteI felt the same way about this project annotations and the essay. The essay was just a longer version of the annotations it my opinion. At the end of the day I don’t really think the essay was necessary. The essay should have had a different format than just pick two sources and analyze the rhetorical technique…that’s what we were told to do in our annotations. My topic was something I had ran into before as well but the difference between us is that I didn’t find each argument presented to be interesting. I was really nonchalant about this entire project. But I’m kind of looking forward to the second one.
@Dustin
ReplyDeleteI also think that project one game me the opportunity to research something that I was already interested in. The point you made about arguing with your friends is also well made. Now I feel that if my friends ever bring up the controversy over my issue I am well armed with facts and evidence that will support my side thoroughly. I would also agree with your idea on the reflective essay, it probably would have been clearer if written directions were out to explain to us how it was supposed to be written.
@Victor-Yeah, I feel you on that. I found myself repeating a lot of my points as well because there weren’t that many points to make, I suppose, especially with my topic, since the majority of my sources were playing on pathos and kind of slandering or attacking their opposition. There was one good argument that relied a little more on logic than pathos, which has to inevitably get in the mix. Overall though, the project wasn’t so bad, it was just like a routine composition paper; nothing too abstract.
ReplyDelete@Victor. I felt the same exact way you did, I thought that Project 1's annotations were exactly like 1101's annotations so I wrote my first draft like that. Then I come to find out that we are taking a completely different approach to analyzing the sources. I liked this method better because it was faster and it helped me understand the different aspects and rhetorical techniques that go into things like this. It helped me take a different approach when I read articles now. I did feel the same way about talking about the same argument over and over again. I chose the negative influences of rap on today's society and every source I picked talked about the same thing; drugs, sex, violence, etc. It was hard to find variety so I was right there with you on that one.
ReplyDelete@Victor I agree completely, it felt a little similar to 1101's project 1 which isn't a problem at all. My only problem with my response here is all I can say about what you wrote is I agree with everything. I think that essay was just an addition to the same thing that project one had us do but analyzing arguments this time around. I think that to say that we do research to find sources better than wikipedia isn't a good choice of words because we've been lectured not to use wikipedia since high school. Also in 1101 it the wikipedia situation came to a point of professors just ignore wikipedia on bibliographies.
ReplyDelete@Victor. I had the same problem you did when I was writing the essay. I think I pretty much wrote the exact same things that I wrote for the annotations, the only difference being that I had to rephrase it to make it sound better and also added more sentences explaining the rhetorical devices. I felt that this project helped me improve my critical analysis skills but it was difficult to find arguments that would not make me sound as if I was repeating myself. I felt like my sources used the same argument for pathos, so it took me some time to come up with new ideas about it.
ReplyDelete@Chris
ReplyDeleteI use the word meh! Anyways I think you were lucky that you had past knowledge of ethos, pathos, logos, and kairos. My professore only touched the subject briefly. But I did not find the project challenging which was a first of all of the writing assignments I have done so far. It is ashame that you had to completely redo your entire project, well maybe you can take it as a hard lesson learned and next time really focus on the topic you were suppose to write about. It helps that you have confident writing your paper, that means you are proud of your work and you worked hard. (:
@Julie-Ann
ReplyDeleteI totally agree, this project is not really anything that I am going to look back on and say it changed my college experience. Its just another writing assignment. It seems like the earlier writing assignments from 1101 really played the analysis writing assignment into the ground. So I cant blame anyone for yawning at the theme to the assignment. I can see for some picking a topic can be a challenge as well. I also had some issues with being able to pick articles from three different media types. Luckily its now all in the past and put another writing assignment six feet under.
@Victor
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about everything you said in regards to the project and title. I like that we can pick our topics and write about what we want, rather than the teacher picking our subject. Project 1 was repetitive in a lot of ways because everything I put in the drafts was the same thing as the final and the only thing that changed was a few mistakes found within the paper. Through the paper, I was saying the same things as before and nothing really changed. I am glad i researched about Internet Privacy because it led me to realize a lot of things about the topic and why we had certain restrictions on sites and who they were for
@Daniella
ReplyDeleteI do agree that it was such a relief to be finished with project one so I would be able to relax and chill out. I am anxious about project two because it is another step closer to being done with the whole semester so I can continue to relax and just chill out during the summer. I am kind of worried about my paper because I did not receive a grade on my first draft of the project and I hope that the changes that I made with my annotations are good enough. I also hope that my essay is structured correctly because I am just really anxious to see my grade.
@bsukhram
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that the project was very complex. When I first started writing the essay I did not know what to do or how to do it. Like you, what I did find very useful in project one was that we were able to pick out our own topic instead of just having one given to us. This made it a lot more entertaining for us which helped us not fall asleep when researching on our topic. Hopefully all of the future projects will let us choose out a topic that we love or enjoy.
@Dustin
ReplyDeleteSame here, when we first got the project introduced to us I was pretty lost on what exactly what we were supposed to do. After we did a couple annotations of the photos in class I started to pick up on it. The workshop we did helped me figure out exactly what we had to do to incorporate ethos/ pathos / logos/ kairos into the annotations; the reason why was because I was not so sure if we had to try and hint at it or just say what each was for the source we used. Also written directions could have helped me out a lot more at first, the directions that were on the fyc website were confusing to me.
@Chris
ReplyDeleteI think it’s really awesome that you had past knowledge of Ethos, Pathos, Logos, and Kairos. I honestly have never heard of these words until I came to college. Lol And like you, I basically also had to redo my whole entire paper too, but only because I did not focused as much on ethos, kairos, logos, and pathos. And Julie Ann said, it also seemed to me that this project just became one of those things that we do just go get it over with. However, some of us agree that this project seemed very complex at first. Its like “how do we do this thing?” But once we learned and understood what we were suppose to be doing, it was much easier.