Isaac Campos 05/09/2008
And so it is that the Spring 2008 at UT El Paso has come to a close. The time has finally come to take a deep breath and ask the ourselves “did we learn anything?” The answer is a straight yes when it comes to English.
One of the most notorious, and sometimes annoying, aspects of this writer is his tendency to be critical about just about everything. Almost in every action, almost, I usually like to take a few seconds and think, “why am I doing this?” This question has lead to many astonishing conclusions which sometimes denoted the lack of purpose I had while performing some activities; classes are not any different. When I’m sitting in my room memorizing for the third straight year in high school the same birth date of the same person, I have to wonder, “why am I doing this? And more importantly, “How is this helping me at all?” The answer is, that it is not helping at all.
Eventually the time came for me to wonder, “Why am I in this rhetoric class?” The answer, unlike the history classes in high school, lead me to realize just how much I was learning about writing and the forging of strong arguments. As I read my papers, they did not sound as just an unguided train wreck anymore, but as a real argument. The advantage of using the techniques taught in Mrs. Cristina D. Ramirez’s English 1312 class was clearly seen in my essays.
One of such techniques that bettered my writing was “Stasis Theory” which is a way in which to develop a conclusion. When I included it in my final paper, it was very notorious that the conclusion had greatly improved compared to the regular conclusion I developed for my essay. Stasis theory is only one of the many argument-strengthening techniques I learned in English 1312.
Besides improving my writing, the class also taught me to be more aware my surroundings. How so? Well, for one thing, it may be become more aware of the deluding arguments advertisers sue to convince us to purchase their product. Understanding these arguments allowed me to become nigh “immune” to their rhetorical techniques. Another aspect of the class that made the most impact on this writer would be the way in which rhetoric impacts and can impact our lives.
Back in the age of the Greeks, some of the wise ones of their time set themselves to propagate rhetoric throughout the land. They wanted to do so to provide the people of their time with the means to defend themselves in the everyday life. This class has accomplished so by providing the techniques that allowed this writer to canalize the feelings and sentiments inside of him and make them a convincing argument. This aspect is very much crucial for any conversation or form of writing; being passionate about a subject will only get you to a certain place, but not towards victory over the opposite side, which what we all want, right?
Besides all of the techniques, which already justified the class, I can most certainly attest that I greatly enjoyed the time I spent writing about the rhetoric of video games. The way the general consensus is right now, few if any teachers would have allowed me to write something about video games; I was allowed to do so in this class. What better thing to write about than my favorite hobby?
Hence, because of the ample amounts of useful information that I learned, and because of the great time I had all throughout the semester, let us conclude that the class was a success. 1312 not only changed my writing, but it also changed the way I looked at my surroundings. Hence, it is also possible to conclude that English 1312 was indeed rhetorical.
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