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Kendell J. Porter

Dr. Angela Miss

UWRT 1104

13 February 2017

Rhetorical Analysis

I am a business major in the Belk College of Business, the first business course that I was

required to take was an intro to business class called Business 1101. As part of the course there

are three Prospect For Success papers that we had to write throughout the semester. The last of

these three papers was a paper on cultural awareness. I had to go to a meeting being held by a

group of people from a different culture than my own and write a paper about it. Any group

whose meeting that I went to would have been a secondary discourse community because it

would be a group of people that I am not usually around (J. Gee 8). The group had to have a

unique culture, been disenfranchised or oppressed, and have negative perceptions about them

from others. I went to a meeting called The West and Islam, Rethinking Orientalism and

Occidentalism. It was a different discourse community from mine but everyone was friendly

and helpful. I was also tasked with writing about myself and showing a clear understanding of

how culture as well as experiences shape my perspectives and the perspectives of others.

My intention in this paper was to explain my experience and what I learned at the

meeting, as well as to defend my own perspectives based on my culture and experiences. I was

also sort of teaching about the things that islamic people have to deal with because of the

negative perceptions that americans have of them. By teaching this I also hoped to dissuade

people from discriminating against or have preconceived negative perceptions of Islamic people.
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When I was writing the paper I was hoping to relate my experiences and how I feel about certain

things to how I believe Islamic people should be treated.

In reality, my intended audience was my professor Dr. Kerr, but I was writing it as if I

was writing to someone who has negative notions about the Islamic faith and the people who

choose to follow it. Later in this analysis of my paper I will talk about the some of the people I

went to school with. I was writing this as if I were writing to a few specific people who never

personally offended me but I heard or heard about some things that they said to other people. I

tried to use my experiences to tie back to how people feel about these people.

Dr. Carl W. Ernst was leading the discussion at the meeting was concise and helpful when

it came to helping understand what he was talking about. He used a few different terms to help

get his point across. The first and most important was Islamophobia, this is prejudice against

Islamic or Muslim people. This was started due to the belief that Islam was a threat to Europe.

This belief that it is the West versus Islam has led to writers saying awful things about Islamic

people. The stereotypes and negative things that were being written and spread definitely

influenced perception some Americans have of Islamic people (Inc. Gallup). The other terms he

used during the meeting stemmed of the understanding of this definition. Next he used the terms

occidentalism and orientalism. Orientalism is the negative perception of Arab peoples and

cultures. Occidentalism is the inversion of orientalism in which people have negative perceptions

about people from the west. He went on to explain how both of these are negative and prevent

groups of people from coming together.

After explaining what I learned in the meeting I went into detail about my experiences. I

started by talking about where I grew up and what some people around me believed. Many of the

people I went to school with were not very culturally aware and it wasnt because they were bad
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people, many of them were just very ignorant. Therefore, they had ideas about others that were

insensitive and could possibly be offensive to people of another culture. Sometimes it was their

language, not what they said but how they said it, that could be insulting (J. Gee 5). I then went

into detail about how this shaped me. Many people would have heard these negative things for

years and just assumed that they were true but I never took them that serious. Even though I

didnt agree with some of the things that they said and believe they were still part of my primary

discourse community (J. Gee 7). In my paper I went on to explain how I am very open minded

and very accepting of other people. I just wish that everyone could love everyone, Im not sure

why there is so much hate. After explaining what I believed and how my experiences shaped my

perspective, I wrote about how other peoples perspectives are shaped. I went on to explain that

many people will read what another person believes or listen to what another person says and

just buy into it. Even if a person was hearing stuff from their parents I believe they should take

what they hear and look stuff up and form their own opinion.

Looking back at my own writing, as the author I feel like I came off as knowledgeable.

Even though part of my paper was about the struggles of people from a different discourse

community from myself, I feel like I did a good job. However, I definitely had to do some

mushfaking; I had to do some research outside of the notes that I took from the group and work

those into my paper. Before writing my paper I had to get a better understanding of what the

terms that Dr. Ernst used during the meeting. I took notes at the meeting and it showed in my

paper because I used proper terms and definitions. I tried to make the readers understand what

islamic people go through in America, things that I didnt really understand until I went to the

meeting. I tried to make them understand this because I feel like once you understand a group of

people better, you might be able to see past the possible negative notions that you might have
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about them. I also tried to make the audience understand where I was coming from and how I

feel about the things I heard and experienced growing up. I wrote about how these experiences

shaped me and made me what I am today.

I believe that I succeeded in fulfilling my intentions of sharing my experiences and

perspectives. I also believe that I succeeded in explaining what I learned at the meeting, but I do

believe I could have been a little more complete. I focused more on the section of the paper

about myself. At the time I believed that I could convey what I was trying to say better through

talking about my experiences. So that was the approach I took to the paper, to focus more on

what I was saying about myself. I definitely still made sure I was complete and accurate in what

I said about what I learned at the meeting I attended, I just maybe could have been more

thorough and spent more time on it. Overall I was satisfied with the paper, I actually enjoyed

writing this more than I usually enjoy any type of papers or essays. Im glad that I was able to go

to the meeting and learn about a culture different from myself. I think it was clear to readers that

I actually cared about what I was writing and that I tried my best to get my message across.

Works Cited

Gallup, Inc. "Islamophobia: Understanding Anti-Muslim Sentiment in the West."

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Gallup.com. N.p., 10 Feb. 2017. Web. 13 Mar. 2017.

Gee, James Paul. "LITERACY, DISCOURSE, AND LINGUISTICS:

INTRODUCTION." The Journal of Education 171.1, LITERACY, DISCOURSE, AND

LINGUISTICS (1989): 5-176. JSTOR. Web. 13 Mar. 2017.