The first course learning outcome that I will address is “Develop confidence as writers.” When I first came into this class I had no idea how I would do. I was always afraid of writing a bad paper or my paper would never come out good and delay the paper over and over. Starting a paper was one of my biggest weaknesses because I was afraid that I would come off too weak or too strong or maybe my voice wasn’t good enough for this paper. Diction is always something professors look for so I didn’t think my diction was proper. But I was wrong. I learned the hard way that my way of writing is valid and I can write how I want. My audience will understand me better that way if I am able to touch the reader by staying true to myself. That helped a lot on my confidence as a writer.

The second course learning outcome I will address is “Develop strengths and weaknesses.” I had many weaknesses coming into this class. Unable to see rhetoric and was very one track minded. I also had many strengths but was never able to utilize it. Weaknesses that I realized I have is getting tired of writing and being unable to persevere through my paper. I realized that the reason for that is I didn’t enjoy writing. Like I described in my first learning outcome I talked about seeing writing as a chore and something to get over with. Seeing it as a chore prevented me from having fun. I became more open-minded to different types of writing and was able to take in more and more information quicker for my paper. One of my strengths that I developed more throughout this course is showing my emotions on paper. I always held back my emotions on paper but showing my voice allowed me to break free of the chains that prevented me from using my words.

The third course learning outcome I will address is “Write complex and well-reasoned compositions in language, style, and structure appropriate to purpose and audiences.” Complex is interpreted differently for everyone. That is because everyones writing style and the way people interpret a piece is different. Roland Barts talked about this that when you publish a piece it is no longer yours because everyone will have a different thought on it. Having your own unique style will be able to grab an audience and be structured appropriately.

The fourth course learning outcome I will address is “Read for main points while documenting information from text, books, libraries, film, and internet.” Researching and looking deeper into a topic is something I developed throughout this course. Researching was something I didn’t look forward to at all and dreaded having to use the internet for something other than videos and games. But when I applied rhetoric into my everyday life I found myself looking into things myself. Annotating is also something I found extremely useful in this course and found myself doing it unintentionally while reading. If I had a writing utensil while reading I would start underlining and circling and writing notes on the side to come back to when I have to discuss it. I enjoyed each and every piece that I had to read throughout this course.

The fifth course learning outcome I will address is “Developing an eye for a variety of rhetorical strategies to integrate that knowledge into their writing.” Rhetoric is the use of writing strategies to persuade or convince someone. In this course we looked far and wide for rhetoric. The examples given to us in class like the copper coin and the entire thing about the underlying rhetoric of disney. The disney rhetoric genuinely scared me and I can not look at it the same anymore. After the many examples of hidden rhetoric given to me from the class I saw myself looking deeper into many shows, books, texts, and movies. I would read many articles on the movie and watch videos to look for this rhetoric and theories. It was all so interesting. I was then able to see rhetoric everywhere. In the readings we were given in class to the movies we were watching in class. I did research over and over for everything that I do. I also learned to apply rhetoric in my writing trying to send a message using my emotions or examples from the real world. rhetoric is everywhere we just need to see it.

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