Benjamin Hall

During my time in Ms. Larsens English class I was able to learn new and unfamiliar
skills concerning the written language and its application in various forms and
genres. Although I was very familiar with the various form of rhetoric as the
curriculum of my Senior English class focused heavily on Ethos, Logos, and Pathos
and their various applications in the genres of argumentative/persuasive media, but
the assignments I did focused almost entirely on the analysis of rhetoric that we
were given, and the original compositions we wrote were mostly literary analyses.
During MWA #1 when I tasked with writing a proposal to the CEO of a hypothetical
company about the ice bucket challenge I was able to apply these rhetorical
strategies in the very context specific genre of professional correspondence. The
supplemental assignment of analyzing Ice Bucket challenge videos was exceedingly
tedious yet contributed to my experience and abilities in analyzing and applying
rhetorical strategies and devices in a variety of mediums, as the Ice Bucket
challenge video was an extremely specific medium which I had not analyzed or
previously given any thought to. As the video I chose to analyze was very short I
had to pay meticulous detail to every second of it in order to form a complete
analysis of the conventions and rhetorical devices involved. However, since I had to
conform to an arbitrary standard in order to fulfill the requirements of the
assignment, I found myself grasping at straws and trying to construe everything I
could as a rhetorical device rather than giving the video genuine analysis and
identifying the conventions which were used intentionally to reach audiences. While
the assignments pertaining to the Ice bucket challenges were still somewhat useful
in relating the conventions, strategies, content, and rhetoric with the specific
context and format in which they are being conveyed, which is much more practical
for real-life professional applications where typical English skills (such as essay
composition) are limited in their usefulness. Another objective that this class was
supposed to yield progress is synthesizing an original idea from various research
sources and presenting it. I have had extensive experience in this area, having been
assigned many different research papers and projects throughout my academic
career and being very familiar in composing them and researching them. While I
assumed I could gain new skills and apply research in a different context while
researching my documentary, I did discovered that the process of researching for a
documentary is almost identical to the research process of a paper or any other
research assignment, with the small exception of interviewing people, and there
was very little original synthesis, Crystal and I merely compiled our research into a
documentary and there was little original thesis derived from our topic, so I very
little progress was made in regard to this objective. Moderate progress was made in
regard to my overall progress as a writer during this course, I was able to apply my
writing skills to new contexts, but I do not believe my actual ability to produce
quality writing and write competently was affected much either way. As far as my
ability to integrate the opinions and thoughts of others in my writing is concerned,
moderate progress was made as I learned to cite properly and had experience in

using interviews in the documentary. No progress was made in examining my

opinions given many different genres and contexts, as I had little interest in many of
these projects. I had no opinion on the Ice bucket challenge thing and writing about
it did little to change that. My fluency in using the English language was exercised
thoroughly and did not atrophy, but I do not believe my diction or composition was
improved significantly.