midterm reflection 1500 words due in 12 hrs

Writing 39B Midterm Reflection

Rhetoric is not a new concept by any means. Having been an artist since grade school, I’ve always had to consider my audience when illustrating my ideas and feelings. Being critiqued is normal, and criticizing my own work is beyond second nature. The analyzing and rather critical analysis of both others' and my work have been relatively natural – definitely, there are times where there is a difficulty. However, when approaching and analyzing fairy tales from a 21​st​century perspective, I realized the tremendous struggle I had when trying to refrain from stereotyping the potential ideas and tradition that of which the author speaks from. I feared mistakes, providing wrongful judgments, and struggled to dissect the author’s usage of rhetorical devices. Upon taking this class, however, I soon began to improve and now see a more dynamic idea of how authors paint meaning into their works.

It is undeniable that my writing was “rusty” coming into UCI, yet alone Writing 39B. The last major essay where I critically analyzed any form of literature was that of the AP Literature test. Although I may have messaged and texted friends throughout the past summer on a consistent basis, none were as formal or meticulous as those expected in an academic setting. Moreover, I struggle with grammatical syntax and transposing my thoughts onto paper in a concise manner, such as when in an English or Writing class. I realized that my once concise driven essays, which I was capable of, no longer came with ease, hence my out of practice state. As seen in the first RIP Exercise (​Rip Exercise 1: Fairy Tale Intro to Me​), having never written a story, I failed in many aspects in developing a fluid plot. Not only was the plot rushed, but even the dialogue and narration were poorly crafted. With sentence openers, such as “At this moment in time,” I relied heavily upon such sentence handicaps throughout the assignment to capture a sense of thought, forgetting to utilize rhetorical strategies (Rip Exercise 1). Failing to utilize dialogue to capture the thought process or concisely phrasing each situation, I was ill prepared to complete the assignment without error. Lacking dialogue within my fairy tale, and a concise yet complex plot. Moreover, not only did the fairy tale seem rushed and blocky because of the “cut scenes” and poorly developed dialogue, but also the failure to construct a central theme to the story. Indeed, there were many morals that could be drawn out of the story, but in essence, nothing particular stood out. Thus, emphasizing my need for improvement upon the early stage of my writing journey in Writing 39B.

However, as I prepared myself to write better stories, professor Karlsson introduced the RA topic, rhetorical analysis, intended for the first half of the quarter. Despite not being able to get the chance to redeem my rather pathetic failure at creating my own fairy tale, I was highly prepared for rhetorically analyzing literature. In addition to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie speech, “The Dangers of a Single Story,” a speech I’ve heard before, I was far more equipped to analyze literature from an objective and well-informed perspective. Reminded and re-enlightened by Chimamanda’s message, as seen in my ​Week 2 Reflective Writing: "The Danger of a Single Story​," which emphasized that often times, people, cultures, religions, etc. are stereotyped and subjected to prejudice not necessarily because of false information, but the inadequate views or lack of variety or completion in their information. I thus, began to write with more ease with deeper analysis – viewing often from the forgotten or missed perspective.

Given another chance at creating a story in the ​RIP Exercise 2: Beast as Protagonist​ assignment, I highlighted the frog’s exploiting and cunning character. From a standard point of view, it would have been logical that the princess was to blame for promising the Frog her presence, however, under rhetorical scrutiny, another angle could be drawn – the Frog Prince being the perpetrator and not the victim. Essentially with a more open mind, and practice, I was, as professor Karlsson states, “able to introduce comedy into this story through the Frog prince’s defiant flippant voice” as well as introducing “this duality of the character, the way that he is both ‘protagonist and villain’.” In contrast to my first RIP Assignment, I was able to redefine the Frog character through rhetorical devices – style – and reveal my intended message. However, despite my improvements, it is still obvious that I had the plot to follow, thus I believe that I would still need to practice on plot development for future RIP assignments within the class.

As I laid my focus back into rhetorically analyzing literature, I began finding opposing, if not contradictory, messages within the tales I read. The well-known Grimm Brothers, known for writing fairy tales for educating children about morals, displayed horrendous imagery and scenes within their version of Bluebeard, “Fitcher’s Bird.” In my CR Exercise 3: Audience in Context​, my analysis led me to realize the importance of the audience as it can serve as indicators to reveal the author’s decisions for implementing rhetoric. In this, I came to ponder about the possible intentions of the Grimm Brothers’ method in their attempt on educating children. Often considering psychological studies into how I try to understand the reasoning behind the author's rhetoric, I also discovered a style in which I have begun approaching my analysis. Despite such improvements, I

realize the potential danger of relying solely on a single point of view from where I derive my arguments. Thus, I hope for later assignments, that I will attempt new approaches at developing arguments that could possibly represent yet another view point that I had not anticipated.

Similarly, the development of style has been the focus of my creative writing, as seen in my RIP exercises. In ​RIP Exercise 3: Rhetoric of Murder​, this is where I was given the chance to demonstrate different writing styles and perspectives – basing off potentially stereotypical concepts – writing as if I were a detective, journalist, and lawyer. Practicing the different ways in which I would interpret evidence, how I would write with the bias of one’s intentions – fact and skeptical based, rumor and objective (though I took a biased stance), and client based – and especially how I would rhetorically present my style. In essence, I realized the complexity and extreme difference between messages as I took a different stances in viewing the murder within the Grimm Brother’s “Fitcher’s Bird.”

The Rhetorical Analysis Essay is by far the epitome of my progress within this writing course. Although I doubt any of my writing pieces are perfect, this essay demonstrates the accumulation of all that I have learned up till now. In my essay, I analyzed Straparola's depiction of women and gender roles in his "The Pig King", while also illustrating Straparola's controversial rhetoric strategy when trying to convey his message - don't judge a person by their appearance- when he references and emphasizes the importance of appearance throughout the story. Upon beginning my first draft, I was unable to connect the many points I wanted to express in a flowing manner because many of the points were not interconnected. I was forced to rethink my approach to the essay and decided on a more concise and argument driven method. By my second draft, I had crafted an outline that stuck with three main arguments, however, I also realized that I relied heavily upon paraphrasing scenes. I quickly removed unnecessary plot summaries and created an argument that took textual evidence as support. With the professor's guided comments on my 3rd draft, I was able to realize several poorly explained points in my essay and improve yet again my essay. I understand that there is always room for improvement, however, as of right now I believe that my RA essay is a clear representation of my progress so far.

I wanted to focus my improvements on the aspect of developing my own style, as high school failed to help me find my voice. However, despite knowing that I should avoid stereotyping, gather more contextual information about the author, and thus

respectively his intended audience, I realize that it was easy for me to develop ideas, but unable to completely transpose what I intended to reveal in my writing. However, with the practice assignments, not only was I able to transfer my ideas onto paper better, but those ideas further led me to scrutinize and question the author’s stances. My analysis is one amongst many, thus I believe that it is impossible to view from an omniscient point of view when analyzing literature at any one time. However, to strive to understand literature by not only analyzing one’s own’s interpretation, but others’ interpretations will further broaden and lighten new paths to better understanding and analyzing literature. Just as Chimamanda explains in her speech, it is a relatively universal truth, continually broadening my perspective and thus strengthening my skills as a writer in the future.