June 14th, 2023

Dear Dr. Warwick,

I am writing this letter to express my heartfelt appreciation for your invaluable

instruction, guidance, and support during my Writing 105R course in this quarter. Your expertise

and dedication were truly helpful to me and I feel extremely fortunate to have had you as my

instructor. As I said in my Padlet post at the beginning of the semester, writing and rhetoric have

always been my weaknesses in the past. Before this course, I didn't have a clear idea of rhetoric,

although other writing class instructors had mentioned the importance of rhetorical strategy, and

I was confused about what good rhetoric should look like and how I should use it to improve the

quality and power of my writing. In this quarter’s WRIT 105R course, through the reading of the

material, the instruction of the professor, the discussion with my classmates, and the practice, I

have gained a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of writing and rhetoric.

My first new understanding of rhetoric is that rhetoric is not just in writing but exists

everywhere in our daily life, including communication, movie, music, and so on. According to

what Jay Heinrichs said in his book “Thank You For Arguing,” “You succeed in an argument

when you persuade your audience.” Rhetoric is a useful tool that we can use to enhance our

persuasiveness. There are five canons of rhetoric: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and

delivery. By reading the material provided by Dr. Warwick and working on Paper 1, I got a more

clear understanding of rhetoric I also learned a new concept called Invitational rhetoric, which

challenges the definition of rhetoric as persuasion. In the passage “Beyond Persuasion: A

 Proposal for an Invitational Rhetoric,” the author Sonja K. Foss and Cindy L. Griffin define

invitational rhetoric as “an invitation to understanding as a means to create a relationship rooted

in equality, immanent value, and self-determination.” By learning about this new concept after

reading material and class discussion, I have learned how to offer perspectives and invite others

to join the discussion and simultaneously have a more critical understanding of traditional

rhetoric. In the artifact selection phase of paper 2, I chose to analyze a poem with an ideological

criticism lens. This also gave me a deeper understanding of the ideological criticism of rhetoric.

According to Foss in “Ideological Criticism,” “An ideology can be seen as a system of ideas or a

pattern of beliefs that determines a group's interpretations of some aspects of the world… .. that a

group deploys to make sense of and define the world or some aspect of it.” Through analyzing

Langston Hughes' poem, Let America Be America Again, and reading sample projects provided

by the professor, I have a deeper understanding of the importance of ideology and how exactly

rhetorics can help authors build and convey their ideology and better reach their goals.

Overall, there are a great number of things that contributed to my change and

improvement of understanding and capability of writing. The reading materials taught me a lot of

new concepts and definitions relative to rhetoric, and I learned from what perspective to analyze

the rhetoric of artifacts. The instruction from the professor and the discussion from my

classmates provided me with a lot of new ideas in different aspects to make my ideas more

critical. The completion of two projects and repeated revisions also allowed me to gradually gain

a deeper understanding of what I had learned through the process of practice. At the same time,

 the free write exercises in every class made it easier for me to output my ideas as a non-native

English speaker.

In the analysis of previous articles, I could only briefly identify the author's theme and

summarize important details of the argument. However, after learning relevant rhetoric analysis,

I began to pay more attention to the language skills used by authors when expressing themselves

and the ideology implied by some illustration and examples, so that I can find the reasons why

these works can resonate with readers and can also understand why they can be passed on for

many years and have not been eliminated because of the change of times.

These methods and angles of understanding and analysis can not be learned at once but

improved through several studies, discussions, and modifications. In a “Rhetorical Analysis of

Emma Watson's "HeForShe" speech, Watson used some vivid narration when she mentions the

inequality of women's rights. I only introduced the content of stories in the first project but

neglected a profound analysis of the function of these narrations. I changed that the definition of

gender equality is abstract, but all the stories are specific, and it is the vividness that attracts the

audience and visualizes the phenomenon. Also, I added the definition of confirmation, which will

lead me in the right direction in the following analysis of relevant content. Additionally, although

I noticed the use of counterarguments, I paid less attention to the effects brought by the rhetorical

question. I revised by stating that this inviting expression will encourage more people to join the

equal rights movement. Most importantly, I failed to realize the emphasizing function of

repetition, so I provide a more detailed analysis in this part.

 In “Let America Be America Again With an Ideological Lens”, I added more content on

analysis, because my previous article only understood the literal content of the poem but did not

comprehensively concentrate on how rhetorical strategy constructed his ideology. For example,

there is a new comprehensive and in-depth analysis of the diction “Negro”, which shows

historical racism experienced by Black individuals. Secondly, in the original project, I focused on

too many explanations on the content of poetry, but in the new project, I adjusted the content and

analyzed more about how ideology becomes influential with the assistance of diverse rhetorical

strategies. To be more exact, I tried to use more direct quotes and analyze the rhetorical strategies

in them for constructing the ideology, like “Whose sweat and blood, ……Must bring back our

mighty dream again.” Here, from the respect of rhetoric, these visualized word expressions can

highlight the ideology.

In my future writing and expression, first of all, I will clarify my ideology in the process

of planning an essay. In addition, I will pay more attention to the use of rhetorical strategies such

as figurative languages, deliberate structure of listing, and listing to try to resonate with readers

so as to better realize my writing purpose.

To sum up, this quarter's writing 105R study has improved me a lot and given me a new

perspective on writing - rhetoric. I have improved both in terms of receiving input and producing

output through the study of rhetoric. Therefore, Thank you again for your instruction and

guidance this quarter!

 Regards,

Tianyi

Works Cited
Foss, Sonja K. Rhetorical Criticism. 3rd ed ed., vol. Chapter 8: Ideological Criticism, 2004, p.
238.
Foss, Sonja K, and Cindy L Griffin. Beyond Persuasion: A Proposal for an Invitational Rhetoric.
2003, p. 5.
Heinrichs, Jay. Thank You for Arguing : What Aristotle, Lincoln, and Homer Simpson Can Teach
Us about the Art of Persuasion. New York, Broadway Books, 2020.