Chris Jeppsen

A New Perspective.

This class has been a great learning experience for me. It has definitely been the most

unique class I have ever taken. English has always been my worst subject growing up,

so it was really refreshing having a class with such unique assignments such as the

notebooks.

I chose social issue to be the Opioid Epidemic we are having here in Utah. I chose this

because I have had a lot of friends and family impacted by this. I went about forming my

perspective as I went. I tried to come up with a gameplan from the moment I chose my

social issue, but if I’m being honest a lot of those plans fell through and that was the

beauty of it. It came to be as time went on. My perspective changed over time as I

researched on my subject. The More I learned the more my perspective changed. One

of the biggest sources that helped shape the way I viewed my social issue was the

notebook assignment that had me put my social issue into the scientific method. This

was one of the most unique things I have done for an english class, but it helped me the

most. I chose the information project to adapt because it had the most valuable

information in it, and that is what I believe is the most important thing to get across to

the reader.

For my revisions I went back and tried to suck in as much feedback as I could over the

course of those assignments. From the labs, to the discussions, I feel getting a different

perspective on things is one of the most beneficial things you can do as a writer. So for
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all of my papers I would include “be as honest as possible”. Because I don’t take

offense to these things. I just want to know what I can improve on. My main goal has

always been to become a better writer. And I think a big reason I have always struggled

with this is because I lose interest to quickly. But this class allowed me to have fun. It

took all of the elements I needed to learn and put in a format that was unique and fun to

go with. And I think that was a big game changer. From using a social issue throughout

the whole class to using different perspectives via the notebook assignments, to simply

being able to have discussions about your work.

When is comes to the big two ideas that we have learned and incorporated into our

writings, I have never viewed writing from these views before this class. “Language and

writing are resources people use to do things, be things, and make things in the world.”

This is so simple yet so complex, and I will do my best to describe what it means to me.

I think the simplicity of it is beautiful. It means exactly what is says. We as humans

using language in the form of writing in everything we do in our lives. From responding

to emails, to creating poetry. Writing is the medium that we use every single day. I have

used this and taken it to heart. I have tried incorporating it into my writing. If we use this

in our everyday lives, why not try to be the best you can be at it. And next “Rhetoric

provides a method for studying the work that language and writing do” At the beginning

of the semester I was very confused by this saying. But What I believe it means is that

refers to the way we study and use writing. So all of the different types of writing. How

we have gone over Flash memoirs, to informative essays. There are so many different

ways to talk about a specific subject. Which is what we did with our social issue. In my
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Flash ​memoir​ I tried to get the reader to feel what was going on, and be emotionally

connected. I am so used to writing informative essays that it was nice to go about it from

a different perspective. But not only that, I wouldn’t be able to have the reader feel what

I wanted them to feel from an informative essay. Or having a ​persuasive​ piece, so that

you can get your point across while hoping to confuse those who are non believers. And

that is the beauty of Rhetoric. Being able to express what you want to express by using

different mediums and modes. I have not had an English class that has taught this way.

But I sure needed it. I have never considered looking at writing and language from

different perspectives because I have thought it was one sided. This class has showed

me that even when you are finished with a paper, you can go back and view the exact

same thing from a different point of view and make it even better. This is the main thing

that I am going to take with me as this semester comes to an end. And I am grateful for

it.