journal 5 Raeann Niebel

In retrospect, the thing I learned most through this project about writing and composing was the importance of an outline, the importance of research, and the rhetorical importance of swaying your audience.

            The outlines for my project, and the outline for the artist statement helped me to complete my project with a feeling of totality, i.e. my resources being exhausted. I felt like there was nothing left for me to say. I didn’t leave my project thinking, well I could have added this. It was a nice thing to know that you did all you could to provide an adequate project to your viewers. The importance of research was something I did not view critically until the comment came up: shouldn’t you also view sources that challenge your views, not just enforce them? This is so vital to any project, but it never came up in any other English class I have taken! It opened my eyes to different viewpoints, and really that is the beauty of being an English major, is knowing that you are not right, and that no one is truly “right.” I’m so happy this project allowed me to further grasp that concept. Obviously, because audience was my keyterm, I learned the importance of audience. It honestly fell into place that my project on audience was also teaching the audience about themselves, and in this I was using rhetoric to sway the audience to believe that they were important through logos (and hopefully pathos and ethos as well).

            This project was cool because, as insinuated before, I have only felt I had the opportunity to learn about being an audience because I constantly am an audience. What a unique dynamic that I now am analyzing the term audience, and then teaching it as well.

            For writing and composing, immediately I think of Bitzer’s audience, author, and text. All three must be considered when composing. I also think of ethos, pathos and logos. All these things must be considered while composing as well. It is also noteworthy that through this class, I am learning the importance of being genuine while writing. You can’t successfully write about something that you don’t believe in or feel passionate about. How to portray that is also important, so portrayal would also be one of the things I would want to consider through composition.