Reflection of Various Writing Projects

                                        An Overview of English 101- Writing Rhetorically

                                                                       By: Cam Hall

             The Writing Rhetorically class for the Fall 2012 Semester at Bridgewater State University was not too diffrent from other English classes that I had been through during high school. This class mainly consisted of doing group work, which revolved around doing exercises from a textbook, and typing up weekly blogs that were required of everybody in the class. The blogs that were assigned to the students in the class consisted of typing up many different kinds of writings, including a literacy narrative and a rhetorical analysis. The general review of the various writing projects assigned during the fall semester that I have is mixed. This is true, based on the fact that there were certain blog posts assigned over the course of the semester that were more fun to do than others.
            There were a couple of writng projects given during the semester that I had fun doing. One such blog post was the film review blog post. The assignment prompt required the write to create a film review on a movie that was old or new and to include reviews from other people about the movie of your choice. I chose the 1986 film Labyrinth, which starred David Bowie and Jennifer Connelly. The film review that I created for this film consisted of a brief summary of the film in the first paragraph.  The opening paragraph was followed by three supporting paragraphs explaining how certain elements of the film contributed to making it a great one overall, in my opinion. The concluding paragraph included quotes from specific people, from the Rotten Tomatoes website, who gave negative remarks toward the film. This last paragraph also included my last remarks about the film, which were mainly positive ones. This blog post was fun, because it allowed me to give my opinions on a film that I grew up watching a lot of the time in my life. Another such blog post was the argument blog post. The assignment prompt asked the writer to chose an issue in society that was current and dabatable and to define your position on the issue. The issue that I chose was downloading music from the Internet. I took the position saying that this should be allowed. I supported my opinion with facts stating that this could benefit the music makers and their record companies, as well as the music buyers, in certain ways. This blog post was fun, because it allowed me to think about the possiblities of changing how many people view downloading music from the Internet in today's society. These two blog posts definatley were enjoyable to do during this semester.
          There were a couple of writing projects given during the semester that I felt were boring to do. One such blog post was the rhetorical analysis blog post. The assignment required the writer to choose a text and write his or her own rhetorical analysis on it, while including an analytical thesis. The assignment prompt also required the wrtier to use a list of questions shown in a chapter in the textbook to guide him or her through the assignment. In doing this assignment, I chose a text that was reprinted in the textbook called Let it Snow, which was a short story by David Sedaris. I made up my rhetorical analysis of this piece of literature by following closely to an example of a rhetorical analysis of another story, which was shown in the textbook. This blog post was boring to me, because I felt that the whole concept of it had no appeal to me and was asking me to write something that had no fun factor to it, at all. Another such blog post was the memoir blog post. The assignment prompt required the writer to tell a true story about a part of his or her life and to include specific narrative elements in this story, including conflict, theme, and characters with motivation and depth. I decided to focus my memoir on my transition from small room special needs classes to normal level classes for students back when I was in middle school and how I carried on from there, etc. Despite knowing what information to include in this blog post, I still found it boring. Even though I do find it interesting to talk about this part of my life, the whole process of typing up the final draft for this assingment was a bit of a drag for me. These two blog posts definately were not as enjoyable to me as others were.
         Overall, I would give my Writing Rhetorically class for the 2012 Fall Semester at Bridgewater State Univeristy a mixed review. This is how I truly feel, based on certain things that I liked and disliked about the class. One of the main things that I liked about the class was working with a decent group of fellow college students, who were all nice in their own ways, for doing exercises and other related class work with the textbook. In addition, one of the main things that I disliked about the class was doing certain blog posts that I came across as boring and mundane to me. This class was also decent in the fact that my professor was fun to talk to and had a good personality to him. In conclusion, this class definately became better for me as the semester neared towards its end.