The very first text we read was “Dawn of Everything” and with it I learned a lot about rhetoric. Specifically, the different types of rhetoric that a writer can include. For example, a polysyntedon was something new to me and I used that form of rhetoric in my own works. Other than rhetoric, the concepts mentioned in the texts were all very new and very fascinating to me. In “Dawn of Everything,” the text challenges what we believe is the “origin” of humanity and looks at other anthropologists’ works and critiques them. Another work such as “Trial by Fire” gave me a new perspective on the prejudice faced in forensic research: how inaccurate findings lead to devastating consequences. Aside from another wonderful addition to this course was the many public guest speakers we had. One of them was a journalist named Ilana who spoke with us about the importance of rhetoric in news articles. We looked through several news articles about events that happened recently and noticed how easy it is to manipulate a story— to not trust something at face value. Another guest speaker was Amira, a Palestinian activist who works with the U.N. to get ambassadors to support Palestine more effectively. Although Amira wasn’t directly related to the class’ content, it was an amazing opportunity getting to hear from her and definitely helped me gain perspective on Palestine through her life stories being there. Generally speaking, WFTS had fascinating topics that gave me new perspectives on them.

• Trial by Fire SPACECAT Analysis
  • Analyze the article Trial by Fire with the SPACECAT rhetorical lens. I put about 2-3 sentences per part of SPACECAT.
• Writing for Survival
  • This was the first major assignment: to write a white paper on one topic from a list that the class created. The white paper consisted of an executive summary, an introduction, the problem description, the solutions, a public campaign, and a part D of your choice. I chose to write a piece of legislation. Some of the rhetorical strategies I used were rhetorical questions and metaphors. For the executive summary and parts of the problem description, rhetorical questions are helpful to contradict what readers may believe. For the public campaign, metaphors were used to create a visual image in the reader’s head.
• Literature Review
  • This was the second major assignment: to analyze different sources and their methodologies on a topic of your choice. My topic was the effect of AI usage on adolescents’ cognitive function. The format was an introduction, negative effects, positive effects, and a source review. There were only a few rhetorical strategies I could use since this was mainly analyzing sources, but I used euphemisms a lot to translate certain harsh scientific jargon into simpler, more coherent words for my reader.

Throughout WFTS, I’ve grown as both a student and a writer

• Rhetoric
  • I’ve learned new rhetoric strategies that I now use and can now identify from different pieces of writing. This is useful when I’m looking at a news article or a scientific journal and want to understand the tone or mood the author/writer is conveying through the use of their rhetoric.
• Chemistry major
  • I’ve gone more in tune with my chemistry major. Since it is a STEM major, one of my goals entering this class was to lessen my scientific jargon and make my papers more easy to read for any audience. I believe I’ve learned how to do that because of this class.
• Researcher
  • This course highlighted consistent use of research and going through libraries, databases, and more to find them. Because of this, my research-finding skills have improved and I’m able to narrow down what I’m looking for much easier now than before.