On the first day of Literature and Psychoanalysis class, I thought wow what an interesting and unique class, and as the semester progressed my opinion of the class got even better as every day we would learn unique concepts. I thought I was prepared for college life but I was gravely mistaken as the workload and responsibility hit me like a truck on a highway. Initially being confused and feeling if I have been bombarded with words I would unsure about what was going on but eventually, I found my footing through zoom meanings, youtube videos, and writing commons allowing me to understand the rhetorical terms rhetorical situation, purpose, audience, genre, stance, media/design, and exigence. I began to grow more familiar with these words as I continued to write more discussion posts, essays and Reading literature such as Freud’s “Five Lectures on Psycho-analysis”, “A Country Doctor;” and “The Yellow Wallpaper,” exposed me to more situations where I would need to use different rhetorical terms based on different assignments that I would face.
My first major challenge was the Summary/Response Essay where I would have to consider what the rhetorical situation is for both “The Yellow Wallpaper” By Charlotte Perkins and Sigmund Freud’s “Five Lectures On Psycho-Analysis”. Initially, I had to understand that the rhetorical situations were: text, author, audience, purpose, and the setting. In “The Yellow Wallpaper” the rhetorical situation is: Jane is the narrator who is currently has a mental illness, the author is Charlotte Perkins, the purpose of this short story is to inform people on the dangers of the rest cure, the audience would be practitioners who promote the rescue and are layman’s to mental illnesses, setting colonial mansion in the countryside during the 1900s and the rhetorical situation for the “Five Lectures On Psycho-Analysis” was a lecture Sigmund Freud was giving, with the intent to inspire audience members to take interest in psychoanalysis, his audience is college students, the setting was Clark University. Unfortunately at the time, I was not able to convey the rhetorical situations precisely and the summary and response essay was a dud. But even though the failure I did not deter I have I continue to apply the rhetorical situation onto different readings that we were given as well as applying the rhetorical situation to my annotations to increase my familiarity with using rhetorical situations as well as when I was drafting revising and editing any writing I had. To get over this hurdle there was something essential to help me grow as a writer which is engaging in social and collaborative aspects of writing. This is essential for any writing class especially this one as it allows you to get different perspectives and different ways that people interpret ideas. in discussion boards and when reviewing each other’s work I would implement different strategies of rhetorical terms to try and help them in any way possible.
This process of exploring and analyzing, developing different strategies, practicing rhetorical terms, and especially engaging with my classmates and collaborating helped me fully master the rhetorical situation by the time I reached my Researched Critical Analysis as I was able to fully display the rhetorical situation found in “Sonny’s Blues” written by James Baldwin which was: a short story written about Harlem, the author is James Baldwin, the purpose is to inspire people in Harlem to play music instead of doing drugs, the audience is the people in Harlem who feel they are trapped, the setting is Harlem 1950s. In this paper, I was able to illustrate Baldwin’s rhetorical situation which helped me strengthen my argument and help me analyze and get a better understanding of Baldwin’s critique on society. Not only that I was able to strengthen my argument by bringing in outside sources such as articles through critical research. This not only strengthened my argument but also allowed me to convey my argument in many different ways, releasing the limitations of just using one article or being given an article and allowing the writing process to be free was very enjoyable as it allowed me to compose my text in different ways as I would interpret my sources and synthesize them into the argument.
After being able to understand rhetorical situations like anyone I wanted to try and share my knowledge with as many people as I possibly can. To reach as many people as I can I would have to develop my skills in Media and design to effectively convey my ideas in a way that can be interpreted by everyone who reads it. To do this I created a portfolio that not only displays my work but also allows me to customize it accordingly letting me express my writing in any form. This allows me to show my growth over the semester through my portfolio which anyone can see and find out how you can get to where I am by seeing the process that I took.
The next time I go into a college writing class I’ll always remember to stay on my toes because if I slip too many times it won’t be easy. Through this semester I’ve been able to improve and hone my writing abilities and have seen great growth of the rhetorical terms through the essays I write the responses I give and my view when reading articles and everything else I do in general as it has become integrated into a part of me.
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