Coming Into College
Going through middle and high school, my writing assignments revolved around one specific idea: fulfilling requirements. Many were impersonal, passionless, colorless. They lacked meaning and character and almost hindered my growth as a writer. I began to dread the next assignment. Whereas writing used to be one of my very most favorite activities, it became a chore, a deadline, a set of expectations. It wasn't until I dove into Inquiry 1 that I saw the meaning in true writing. I saw what it meant to be a writer- to put your all, your life, into your writing.
As I look back, my journey began as we started the first inquiry. In the first blog that we wrote, we defined inquiry and evaluated the meaning of the reading,
Mother Tongue. I ended the blog with the following words: “Reflection reveals ideas that aren’t always easy to see and understand unless you dive deeper beyond simple facts. Reflection is what creates true inquiry and allows it to become successful.” At the time, I did not fully understand the depth of what I was saying, but now I see it.
Inquiry 1 was an essay written using a personal experience that was analyzed. As I wrote Inquiry 1 and then proceeded to Inquiries 2-4, I began to see that a true
writer includes aspects of their own life in their writing. Somehow, in some way, the words a composer writes influence his or her personal experience and thinking.
Writing is not a passive activity; inquiry is a necessary piece of it. You must ask questions and look for answers in order to bring depth to your writing. As I passed from one inquiry to the next, I began to see myself as a composer, as an artist of words and phrases, constructing them in such a way as to break through to the core of my audience. The meaning of rhetoric became tangible to me.
Rhetoric, for me, began as a surface knowledge: you can appeal to an audience using ethos, logos, and pathos. I knew that this meant I need to add credibility, facts, and emotional topics to my writing. But I was not able to wrap my head around the full concept, for whatever reason. I did not see this until, in the last
few weeks, Mr. Edwards, in class, mentioned that few students actually had used the word “rhetoric” in their writing. He said it was almost as though we were afraid of the word. It was right then that I began to analyze my view of rhetoric. It took me up until the last inquiry to fully grasp rhetoric, to see that it is so much more than a set of catchy phrases or a good resume. Rhetoric is taking the way in which a topic has affected you as a person and putting that in your writing in a way that your audience can understand, accept, appreciate, and apply.
This new view of rhetoric, then, furthered my understanding of audience and writing. In the writing I did in high school, my audience was generally a teacher and a grade book. I wrote for the “A+”. That is not writing. Real writing, real rhetoric, can be effective without the “A+”. It can be effective with an “F”. Because you aren’t writing for a letter, you are writing for the individual on the other side of the words.
Mother Tongue, the reading previously mentioned, can be found at: http://teachers.sduhsd.k12.ca.us/mcunningham/grapes/mother%20tounge.pdf .
As I look back, my journey began as we started the first inquiry. In the first blog that we wrote, we defined inquiry and evaluated the meaning of the reading,
Mother Tongue. I ended the blog with the following words: “Reflection reveals ideas that aren’t always easy to see and understand unless you dive deeper beyond simple facts. Reflection is what creates true inquiry and allows it to become successful.” At the time, I did not fully understand the depth of what I was saying, but now I see it.
Inquiry 1 was an essay written using a personal experience that was analyzed. As I wrote Inquiry 1 and then proceeded to Inquiries 2-4, I began to see that a true
writer includes aspects of their own life in their writing. Somehow, in some way, the words a composer writes influence his or her personal experience and thinking.
Writing is not a passive activity; inquiry is a necessary piece of it. You must ask questions and look for answers in order to bring depth to your writing. As I passed from one inquiry to the next, I began to see myself as a composer, as an artist of words and phrases, constructing them in such a way as to break through to the core of my audience. The meaning of rhetoric became tangible to me.
Rhetoric, for me, began as a surface knowledge: you can appeal to an audience using ethos, logos, and pathos. I knew that this meant I need to add credibility, facts, and emotional topics to my writing. But I was not able to wrap my head around the full concept, for whatever reason. I did not see this until, in the last
few weeks, Mr. Edwards, in class, mentioned that few students actually had used the word “rhetoric” in their writing. He said it was almost as though we were afraid of the word. It was right then that I began to analyze my view of rhetoric. It took me up until the last inquiry to fully grasp rhetoric, to see that it is so much more than a set of catchy phrases or a good resume. Rhetoric is taking the way in which a topic has affected you as a person and putting that in your writing in a way that your audience can understand, accept, appreciate, and apply.
This new view of rhetoric, then, furthered my understanding of audience and writing. In the writing I did in high school, my audience was generally a teacher and a grade book. I wrote for the “A+”. That is not writing. Real writing, real rhetoric, can be effective without the “A+”. It can be effective with an “F”. Because you aren’t writing for a letter, you are writing for the individual on the other side of the words.
Mother Tongue, the reading previously mentioned, can be found at: http://teachers.sduhsd.k12.ca.us/mcunningham/grapes/mother%20tounge.pdf .