Valerie Perez

ENG 2010- Final Reflection

Skills through an educated mind

I chose this local issue because I believe it needs to be addressed. As a minority I see
how my people suffer so I can understand the pain others have endured in the hands of
a racist. I understand the fear and the hopelessness I wanted to be able to talk about
the issue in a nonviolent format.

I was writing in hopes to support the BLM movements and help others understand it.
Through these projects I was able to share unbiased viewpoints which were hard at
times. I really started having a better understanding of both sides during the profile. For
my profile I chose a police chief that I learned to respect, she stood for her community
through being accountable for actions that weren’t her own.

Through the projects I started changing the mediums I used, I have relied so heavily on
written word that all other options seemed difficult. As I was challenged to try something
different, I started small by adding pictures to my essay. I liked the flow so the next
project, the informative project I did a photo essay. For the persuasion effect I did a
comic/video that might have been my favorite. It was able to convey everything so well
and the images all connected to emotion. That is why I am revising my memoir it was
the first project and I would like to incorporate some of the techniques learned.

The first idea that “Language and writing are resources people use to do things, be
things, and make things in the world.” I believe means that the power of writing can
manifest things into being. Meaning the things, we write readers can interpret and gain
inspiration from, from there we create, and things are made. Story telling is a big part of
this idea, it starts written and has become movies, culture, tradition, history, etc.

This was seen in every project, for example we started with narrative techniques
through our flash memoirs. This was done to connect research to stories and create an
issue/thought. Then our informational effect represented this idea through specific
information, it built knowledge in our readers allowing new opinions and arguments to
form. I feel that writing is the equation for creation in people, it all starts somewhere with
language and writing. It starts a seed which grows with everyone writers, teachers, and
readers.

The second idea that “Rhetoric provides a method for studying the work that language
and writing do” I believe reflects on the use of rhetoric in writing. Rhetoric writing is the
art of writing persuasively to cause an effect. Rhetoric is the process made to
understand the use and the need for writing. I think that is found in all our writing
projects through the memoir, informative effect, to the profile. When we write it’s not
always with bias but always strategically. When writing we always had our issue in mind
and never lost our opinion, however it allowed us to think openly to be able to attract
different audiences.

One instance I found rhetoric writing was in my profile, where there were no opinions
but all facts on a person. Writing their story to the world through doing so we give them
a limelight. The goal was never to share our opinions or create a campaign for the
individual however through strategic writing we could incorporate those feelings without
writing them.

These ideas are the root of writing they have helped me understand the different
techniques and benefits to writing. This class and these lessons allowed me to gain
additional writing skills through a newly found knowledge. I hope going forward I apply
these techniques and ideas to all writing to be able to write strategically.