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Katie Jordan

Matt Weinkam

ENG 111

10 December 2009

Semester Reflection

In high school, the paper assignments I had focused more on responses to reading

assignments instead of focusing on improving my writing through different writing

styles. English 111 helped me to improve my writing overall by concentrating on

specific topics including an ethnography, a rhetorical analysis, and a research paper.

Specifically, I developed a better understanding of how to analyze and write my thoughts

in a clear, cohesive manner. My ability to analyze greatly improved from when I wrote

my ethnography to when I wrote my rhetorical analysis, leaving my last assignment, the

research paper, to demonstrate my best analysis.

The ethnography assignment left many doors open for creativity, and with that

allowed me to analyze areas of the Farmer School of Business (FSB) that I might have

otherwise not addressed. For example, I said, “But then I ask myself, are these chairs

actually necessary? Well not necessarily, but the point is that every detail in the building

has a purpose to enhance the student’s learning environment far better than the old

business building did, which in turn benefits the university as a whole.” In detail, I

observed the chairs in the Farmer School of Business, and was able to analyze why they

might be important to the school. The creativity we were allowed to use on this

assignment definitely helped with my transition from high school to college as far as my

writing goes. I was able to use the writing techniques I learned in high school in order to

creatively analyze details of the FSB to make an argument. Without the creative edge

 
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requirement, my focus would have probably been on the building as a whole or other

details less specific, although with my focus on every small detail of the building, I was

able to notice details as minuscule as the wheel structure on chairs and relate that

structure to the importance of the business school as a whole. My thought process here

demonstrated my strong ability to analyze, however, this assignment only addressed

analyzing details and features of a place, FSB. I still needed to learn more about

analyzing other material, for example articles, in order to further improve my skill over

all.

The rhetorical analysis assignment crucially helped my analyzing skills because I

had to carefully dissect two opposing articles about a Supreme Court case addressing

animal cruelty. In particular, I analyzed each articles use of logos and how that

strengthen or weakened their overall argument. For example, when addressing logos in

one article I said, “This explains that the law has only been needed, and in fact used,

when dogfighters make illegal, abusive videos at the expense of animals. This fact

addresses the specific case of Robert Stevens. Stevens produces videos of dogfights, and

in the opinion of the Humane Society, he is therefore enabling this cruel industry. This

explains why animal activists are fighting to keep this law intact.” I identified the use of

logos in the article and then analyzed how that use of logos benefits their argument. I

further explained what the article was addressing, demonstrating my ability to read,

understand, and analyze the importance of what the article is saying. My work with

logos in this rhetorical analysis paper shows a better overall understanding of how to

analyze because I do not solely think of meaning, like in my ethnography. Instead, I

decipher the meaning of the article’s logic and then apply it to the argument they are

 
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trying to make. In other words, in my ethnography I was analyzing details to make my

argument. In my rhetorical paper I was analyzing detail in someone else’s argument to

make my own argument. This rhetorical analysis process involves more complex

thinking, which illustrates how by ability to analyze improved even more after this

second assignment in English 111.

The last assignment over the course of this semester was the research assignment.

This final assignment required me to look through many sources in order to form an

argument about my research topic, how women dress. I definitely advanced in my ability

to analyze, demonstrated when I said, “The Feminist Movement has made apparent “that

women are so often represented as sexual spectacle, as ‘on display’ for men” (Walters

50), but why has that come to be? The main reason comes from the imbalance in power

between men and women in our Western Society; after all, the main point of the feminist

movement was to gain more power for women. This power imbalance leads to the

connection between gender and looking.” I found information on how women are often

represented as a sexual spectacle for men, and then from that was able to further analyze

and explain how that has come to be. I had to think of how different sources of

information can come together in a cohesive manner to make my over argument about

how women dress effective. By far, this research process represented my best and fullest

understanding of how to analyze. As I said before, in my ethnography I was analyzing

details to make my argument, and in my rhetorical paper I was analyzing detail in

someone else’s argument to make my own argument. In my research paper, I was

analyzing detail and arguments from many different sources, where I then had to combine

all my different thoughts and findings into one complex argument about a topic. This

 
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more intense analytic process involved far more steps and a far better understanding of

how to analyze material to make my own argument.

Overall in English 111, my understanding of analyzing details and information

improved as we moved from assignment to assignment. As the year progressed, we

covered more information as a class about writing, and I was able to relate that

information I learned into ways I could improve my analytic ability. That focus

contributed to my ability to write a clear, rational, and organized paper by the end of the

semester. By focusing on improving my analytic skills, I was in turn able to produce

better-argued papers, step-by-step, assignment-by-assignment. I look forward to

applying the skills I learned in English 111 to my English class next semester (English

112) in order to continue improvement in my writing.