Throughout the course of this semester, the FIQWS Composition course has been a pathway through which I’ve been able to increase my understanding of rhetorical analysis and to change the way I approach writing. Considering that some of the course’s learning outcomes include recognizing and practicing key rhetorical terms, as well as engaging in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes, I would claim that I fulfilled many of the objectives for this semester. Although there is of course still room for improvement, I’ve seen great progress in my work as a writer. The rhetorical terms we focused most heavily on this semester generally dealt with the rhetorical situation, and included purpose, audience, genre, stance, and media. I feel I developed a thorough understanding of these terms and demonstrated this through my work. 

The idea of audience was one we placed a lot of emphasis on throughout the semester, and it’s an aspect of the rhetorical situation I was able to gain insight into. In the beginning of the course, when asked to analyze the rhetorical situation of “The Dangers of Tipping While Black”, I did not even include anything about the audience in my analysis. I brushed it off, and discussed other aspects of the article. However, thanks to a peer’s response to my post, I was reminded of the audience of the article and how that played a role. I took this lesson to future work, and in the Source Based Essay, I analyzed the intended audience of a social media post created by Matt Bernstein. His intended audience was young LGBTQ+ community members and allies browsing social media, and he demonstrated this through his inclusion of funny, and perhaps relatable, memes and tweets. Specifically, I wrote, “One of these twitter memes reads, ‘I told my dad I was gay and he was like ‘we all have sexual feelings towards men it’s just a fascination’ like’ followed by a picture of celebrity Skai Jackson standing next to a sculpture of the word we”. Including more specific examples of how writers and creators targeted their audiences turned out to be a more effective method of analysis, and I feel this was reflected through my grade on this assignment. 

Over the course of the semester, I learned to approach the idea of rhetorical situation and audience both as a reader and also as a creator. Through the Composition in Two Genres project, I explored the idea of writing/composing when targeting a specific audience. I found this project very eye-opening because I had the option to include anything I wanted in my work. I quickly realized that every decision I made had to be deliberate and had to tailor my pieces towards the audience I wanted to target. For example, in my social media post for this project, I used a bright pink and blue background alongside many images and a video clip to catch the viewer’s attention in the fastest way possible to counteract the swipe and scroll nature of social media. I also used emojis to make reading more interesting for the younger audience I was targeting. Additionally, younger audiences would be more likely to understand emojis, which I included in the post when discussing actions audience members could take. In my blog post, I targeted young adults, and had to adjust my creative choices to this decision. I included a promotion to share the article to social media platforms at the top of the post  because younger adults are far more likely to be subscribed to social media than older individuals. Every choice I made in these compositions was based on the audience I wanted the piece to reach. In this way, I learned to understand and use print and digital media to address a range of audiences. 

Another way I improved my understanding of the rhetorical situation over the course of the semester was by recognizing and practicing key terms when engaged in reading and writing situations. When reading new texts, I’ve begun conducting an exercise I found online called “SOAPSTone”. This is an acronym standing for subject, occasion, audience, purpose, speaker, and tone. I write this on the top or bottom of every article and as I was reading, I’d write a bullet point or two about aspects of the rhetorical situation. Then, by the time I’d finish reading, I’d already have my analysis completed for me. This strategy I developed for reading also made writing so much easier because I learned to revolve different sections of my writing around different aspects of the rhetorical situation. When I am drafting, I now begin by making an outline of my thesis statement, my main idea for each paragraph, and two or three quotations pulled from credible sources that I could use to support my claims. This strategy has worked for me, because it makes my writing more structured and have more flow. 

In this course, I’ve also learned more about how to research and find credible sources. In our Source Based Essay, I explored using the CCNY Library Databases available to us to find scholarly sources relating to my topic of LGBTQ+ rights in America. To find my source that discussed mental health in the younger LGBTQ+ community, I had to develop keywords for my search such as “LGBTQ+”, “teens”, “depression”, and a few others to find the source I was looking for. When searching on the Internet, I’ve also learned more about checking articles for inaccuracies, bias, and timeliness. I now begin browsing articles by searching for the author’s name and the date or year the article was published. In many cases, the articles that do not include this information cannot be considered credible. I also compare the information presented to other sources to determine if the information is trustworthy or not. This process helped me find my magazine article on Vox for the Source Based Essay. Analyzing different kinds of sources also exposed me to a variety of genres and rhetorical situations throughout the semester, and I now have a better understanding of how different genres are tailored toward different audiences, even if they discuss similar topics. For example, in the Source Based Essay, the social media post I analyzed was more targeted toward teenagers and young adults; this was illustrated by Matt Bernstein’s inclusion of humorous memes and tweets in his post. However, in the newspaper article I analyzed, words used “such as legislature” were tailored to an older audience, one that a person who commonly reads newspapers would be most likely to understand. 

One especially important takeaway I made from this course was the significance of collaboration in writing and in acknowledging others’ ranges of linguistic differences. In past English classes, I’ve always left solely positive reviews of my peers’ essays because it made me uncomfortable approaching them with potential flaws in their writing. However, in this class I’ve learned that criticism can be constructive and can benefit writing. Writing feedback constructively is important because you do not want to make your peer feel badly or less than because their writing is not perfect. No one’s is.  For example, in feedback to a peer, I stated, “I also appreciated that you had mini conclusions after writing about each source…One thing I would make sure to include however, is inserting in-text citations into your paragraphs including the author’s name and page/paragraph numbers (if applicable). You pulled such relevant evidence from your sources and I think that would strengthen it even more”. By providing aspects of their work I appreciated, they can see that their writing was good and I recognized the effort they put in; there are simply just parts that can be approved upon. Hence, collaboration has become an important part of my method of writing. 

Thus, although there are aspects of writing that I can improve upon, I have taken away a lot from this course. My understanding of the rhetorical situation and of how to research have greatly developed. Also, I learned that collaboration with peers is a great way to improve writing. One thing I’d like to work on is keeping my writing concise and cutting out unnecessary details. I plan to take this goal into future writing classes so that I can be a better writer.