Katy Grunenwald

MMW&R
Writers Statement
4/26/2015

Writing and Rhetoric is a University Requirement here at the

University of Notre Dame and is offered in three different forms:
regular, community service based, and multimedia. Through my
completion of the multimedia writing and rhetoric class I have grown
as a writer more specifically in the area of different forms of rhetoric
and my overall understanding of it. I have also strengthened my good
writing process habits that I established in high school. I took an
advanced composition class in high school, but that focused mostly on
the writing process and composition of argumentative research papers.
This was an extremely helpful background to enter the writing and
rhetoric class with, but I have learned a lot through the multimedia
aspect of this course.
The four main assignments of this course included an audio
narrative, a rhetorical analysis, a research essay, and a TED talk.
Throughout the semester students were also required to maintain a
blog with posts reflecting on new topics, current processes, and
completed assignments. The first major assignment was a personal
narrative that had to be recorded and turned in as an audio narrative.

This right away introduced us to the multimedia aspect of the course

and forced us to consider not only the words that comprised our
stories, but also the tone, speed, sound effects, and emotion that come
together to form an audio essay. This was a good first assignment to
slowly get us students comfortable with expression through different
channels other than Word, because as formidable as Garage Band
seems, its actually relatively easy to record and upload projects.
The second major assignment was a Rhetorical Analysis of the
film Selma that we all went to see as a class. This is definitely my
favorite assignment of the semester because it was the most different
from anything I had done previously. Through learning about the
definition of rhetoric and the ways in which it is executed and
interpreted I realized that I hadnt ever actively analyzed a movie; I
merely watched. I really enjoyed this process of dissecting the movie
Selma as I watched and discusses as a class afterwards the tools it
employed to convey a message and argue a point of view.
The third assignment was a Research paper that we did a
substantial amount of research and planning to complete. I think this
assignment best displays my writing process and served to further
solidify writing good habits in all of us students. Completing a research
proposal and annotated bibliography forced us to think about the
sources we were using and make sure also that we used these sources
to support our argument, not control it. I think this was an important

realization of mine. I also incorporated what I had learned from the film
analysis into this project by using the same techniques in analyzing
reality television shows for my argument about stereotyping. This
assignment also showcases the delicate formulation of an argument
that required us to think about every aspect such as audience,
purpose, action, and credibility.
The fourth assignment, a TED talk, was really an extension of the
third assignment in that most of us expanded on our research papers
and presented them in the form of a TED talk. I am most proud of this
project because I worked so long and hard on the research and also
conquered my fear of public speaking. As I described in my postassignment reflection I had to take a speech class in high school that
was easily the most dreadful experience of my academic career thus
far. Presenting my TED talk, however, felt natural and gave me
confidence in my public speaking abilities. I think it was really smart
that this assignment came right after the research papers because I
was presenting about something I knew a lot about by that point, and
was passionate about.
Overall taking Multimedia Writing and Rhetoric has made me
much more confident going into other writing based classes. It has
opened me to more perspectives and made me more analytical and
observant of rhetoric in my everyday life.