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Edwards, Andrea

English Rhetoric and Composition Portfolio

Reflective Essay

Fall 2015

One More Time

Aside from the various personal issues I had to battle over the last three years in the

graduate school program, and the various struggles I have had to overcome in terms of finishing

my academic work, I haven’t a single regret. Those struggles I have faced have only served to

give me the strength I need to complete my studies and continue researching for as long as I can.

The first two papers I wrote for the program were for Dr. Kraemer’s English 582- “Rhetoric and

Poetics”, and Dr. Hall’s English 551-“Studies in English Literature”, and those papers were

“‘Now I Lay Me’- Hemingway and Narrative” and “Ecocriticism on William Blake’s ‘The

Lamb’ and ‘The Tyger’” (which was also my Graduate Symposium paper in 2012). I felt for the

longest time as though these were two of my best papers because I worked tediously on them. I

was fresh and new to the program, and I wanted to leave a lasting impression on my colleagues,

professors, and academic community as a whole. At the time, I was also a fan of Ernest

Hemingway and William Blake.

As I was creating my paper on Ernest Hemingway’s “‘Now I Lay Me’-Hemingway and

Narrative”, I had also created the previously mentioned seminar paper for Dr. Hall. At first, my

intention was not to present “Ecocriticism on William Blake’s ‘The Lamb’ and ‘The Tyger’” at

the Graduate Symposium despite having poured my entire being into it in an attempt to prove I

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was worthy of being admitted into the English Graduate Studies Program. I had to present this

paper to the rest of my colleagues. This paper was also the reason for my inspiration and

motivation to write higher quality papers, but I always felt as though I couldn’t do so because

they would never be as great as my symposium paper, or the paper I completed for Dr.

Kraemer’s course.

I loved Ernest Hemingway’s style of writing, and I was fascinated by his prose and short

stories on war and political topics, which did not appear to be hot button topics of the time. They

were, nevertheless, topics which needed to be addressed. Hemingway’s short story “Hills Like

White Elephants” caught my eye because I related to the female protagonist of the story in terms

of sharing a familiar situation and perspective. I loved Hemingway for addressing this issue

insofar as shining a much needed light on the women and the struggles we face. Ernest

Hemingway won me over again with “Now I Lay Me” in the form of his protagonist Nick

Adams. I was able to relate instantly with Nick Adams since I had experienced dreams and

memories that were similar to Nick’s, and I had friends and family members who wanted me to

get married. I also loved the how the story was narrated and Hemingway’s style of writing. The

lyric narrative was an essential part of this short story.

The next rhetoric course after this English 582 or “Rhetoric and Poetics” for me, was

English 587: “Teaching Basic Writing”, and in this course one of our assignments was about

“Teaching Style”, so I created a project on teaching style in first-year composition student

papers. At first, I disagreed with Karen Vaught-Alexander’s views on teaching grammar and

mechanics before style in freshmen composition papers; however, my views on this have

changed in light of having tutored and taught students at the elementary school level. I clearly

see now how grammar and mechanics are of great importance, and as important as style is in a

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student’s paper, conveying the meaning intended to for the audience’s adherence should be a

primary focus. We, academics, ultimately want to teach students how to convey their ideas in a

well-constructed manner, and in order to do this those students need all of the resources we can

provide them with in order to succeed.

Winter Quarter 2013 was my back-to-back Rhetoric and Composition courses quarter,

and I had taken English 583: “Composition Theory” with Dr. Edlund and English 584: “Theory

and Practice of Modern Rhetoric” with Dr. Kraemer, and I considered this quarter to be my

“experimental quarter” in terms of the projects and topics I choose for my respective courses. My

best-friend, Winston, and I choose to co-write the “Rhetorical Analysis Ted Kaczynski’s ‘The

Unabomber Manifesto” for English 584. In retrospect, it may not have been a wise decision to

write such an experimental academic paper; however, I do not regret having written it. There

were plenty of topics to choose from, yet I chose to compose a paper on this subject essentially

to differentiate myself from my colleagues. Winston and I stated:

Our paper looks at Ted Kaczynski’s “Industrial Society and Its Future”,

otherwise known as “The Unabomber’s Manifesto” for how his rhetoric warns

readers to the dangers of technology dependent society. Along with other

sources, we analyze how Burke’s pentad, focusing on the scene-agent ratio,

comes into play as several people like Heidegger argue the current situation of

society from our machines or the nature of Kaczynski’s argument for how it

pertains to the lives of Americans. It is the collision of different factors of society

relevant to the activities of Kaczynski where defenders of organized institutions

(such as law enforcement) or the common person assert their positions (Abstract

from “Rhetorical Analysis Ted Kaczynski’s ‘The Unabomber Manifesto”).

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At the time, I viewed rhetoric, such as Kaczynski’s manifesto, to be a dangerous and riddled with

misinformation. The messages were convoluted, yet I also viewed it to be intriguing in the sense

that Kaczynski honestly believed his own ideology, and had gone so far as to murder and

threaten lives in order to send his message to the masses. I also asserted Burke’s Pentad was

fitting for the analysis due to the combination of variables occurring in the overall events

transpiring in the course of the several months and years Kaczynski had carried out his attacks.

Aside from this assignment, there were other aspects of this course I genuinely loved.

Another assignment we had for this course was to read Dr. Edlund, “Bakhtin and the

Social Reality of Language Acquisition”, and when I saw Dr. Edlund’s name on this assignment,

I began to realize professors have written papers as well, and Dr. Edlund’s article discusses

Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of language acquisition. This article also addresses syntactic and

grammatical problematic areas alongside failures in rhetoric. Once I was in several of Dr.

Edlund’s courses, I soon began to realize that professors have to write and research often in order

to gain and maintain their standings at their respected universities. They also wrote those papers

because they genuinely loved researching for their respected fields of study.

I was also enrolled in Dr. Edlund’s English 583 course the in exact same quarter as I was

enrolled in Dr. Kraemer’s English 584 course, and in Dr. Edlund’s 583 course, I learned how to

teach students how to address their discourse communities using several of James Berlin’s

theories and arguments as stated in Rhetoric, Poetics and Cultures. Much of this proved helpful

and useful when I was tutoring college students with learning disabilities at ARCHES. I had

several students who had difficulties communicating with their professors because they were

unaware of what their professors were requesting in their writing, and after reading the articles

and textbooks required for reading for class, I learned how to better address my students’ needs

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and wants in their writing. Several of my students had a better success rate with their writing

after I stated to them that their professors wanted to understand how much of the discourse they

comprehended. These professors were demanding their students analyze the theories and

practices of their fields, and demonstrate an investigative interpretation of what they have

learned in their courses thus far. It is often difficult for students to fathom what their lives will be

like after they have graduated college, and they can’t imagine how their college writings will

apply to their professions, however, it does.

The next quarter, spring 2013, I was enrolled in English 588, and for this course, Dr.

Edlund gave us the option of writing about Machine Scoring, MOOC’s, and different forms of

teaching colleges courses, and I chose to write about Machine Scoring in light of how technology

was changing, in relation to demands for efficiency or other department concerns, computer or

machine scoring was readily becoming the norm at colleges nationwide with arguments for

automatic evaluation and possibly feedback. I was rather frightened by this due to my prior

experiences of how unreliable technology could be. I did not see machine scoring as an answer

to professors and teachers’ prayers of a better formula or format of scoring student papers.

Machine scoring, to me, did not seem to be an adequate answer to current demands for

education, and it appears as though I may have been somewhat right about it. I tutored students

for one year at a multimedia middle school where the technology, at times, was anything but

reliable, and the students, the majority of them, were not taught how to take test on computers.

The majority of them didn’t even have the patience for it. The other problem was there was not

enough emphasis on reading articles and analyzing them. Achieve 3000 was a system set up to

address such elements of their studies; however, it is also a flawed system because it does not

detect all of their errors. The instructors are still in charge of that aspect of the program. If

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machine scoring is similar to Achieve 3000 and turnitin.com, then the professors still have the

power to determine the score or grade of the student’s paper.

The final Rhetoric course I had taken was Rhetoric 581, and I loved this course. It was

History of Rhetoric, and I loved this course because I love learning the history of anything I am

studying. I love learning the history of a subject or field of study because I have a point of origin,

and I have a greater awareness of where this field of study is going in terms of ideas, arguments,

theories, and methodology. Aristotle and Cicero were two of my favorite rhetoricians, and my

colleagues and I were given several wonderful assignments in this course. The first was for out

midterm, and it was an article which completely opened my mind, and one which bestowed upon

me a rhetorical epiphany. The article was entitled “The Lie Factory: How politics became a

business” by Jill Lepore, 24 September 2012, and it was an article from The New Yorker. It

solidified and validated my feelings towards the political system in the United States of America.

For years, I felt as though our political system was terribly divided, and now I knew why. Lepore

explained in such great detail, and with historical evidence, why the political system was in such

disarray, and why people feel as though they cannot win when it comes to their political views.

As though there is no middle ground, and although I felt sick to my stomach after reading it, I

felt an extreme sense of validation after reading it. I have kept the vast majority of my articles

and term papers from the program (I have done my best not to get rid of anything, or throw any

of my articles and papers away); however, I view this article as my trophy because I can use it as

proof whenever anyone attempts change or devalue my personal or political views.

I had several favorite assignments from this course, and I would have to express now that

this had to have been a favorite course due to all of the wonderful assignments Dr. Edlund had

given us. I loved the “Group Panel Enactment Project” Dr. Edlund assigned to our class because

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it gave me a greater understanding of the rhetoricians, their theories, and the roles they play in

rhetoric. My group members were Brittany Cortez, Sally Olivas, Claire Rodriguez, Terry

Steagull, and our group was named “Rhetors United”. We created a skit centered around

arguments my character from the novel Roman Blood. Our characters had to analyze the novel,

and provide arguments and statements about the novel. My character, Cicero, spent much time

defending himself because he believed the statements created about him were false, inaccurate,

mere speculation, and an over-dramatization of the case and my character. It was enjoyable

having to defend myself and listening to the arguments being made by my fellow rhetoricians.

Another project we were given was the final project, and for this one, I choose to analyze

memory and oral tradition in rhetoric and academia. The project was entitled “Memory and Oral

Tradition in Rhetoric”, and I loved my enlightening research for this paper. I had to find articles

on memory and oral tradition, and I had to create a lesson plan for students in a freshman

composition course. This fascinated me due to what my students at ARCHES and my colleagues

and I were going through during that particular quarter. Winston Falkenstein and I, along with

two of our other colleagues, had to study for our Comprehensive Exams that quarter. I also had a

student at ARCHES who came to me that quarter because she had been accused of plagiarism

(which is considered a crime in any portion of academia), and I was tasked with helping her out

of her predicament as I may have stated in my essay on memory and oral tradition. She was

accused of accidental plagiarism because she struggled to remember where certain quotes or

phrases came from; this was the inspiration for my project. I acknowledge I may have brought

this to the attention of other academics and scholars before, although I feel it is important to

address this because there are students who have ended up in her situation, and I admit I could

have been one of those students at one time in my academic career.

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This was an eye-opener for me because I had never met someone who had been accused

of academic plagiarism before, let alone being challenged with the task of assisting her in

rectifying her academic standing. I did everything I could to assist her while also researching

how our minds and memory function. I admit I have difficulty remembering at times and have

felt the fear of never wanting to be in a situation where my memory failed me so much to the

point where I would suffer for it.

When I began researching this project, I learned there was a long history of rhetoricians

and people being concerned with memory because of the emergence of writing, reading,

literature, books, television, computers, and now the scariest one of them all, smart phones,

where a person doesn’t have to remember any kind of information—they can simply search for

said information on their phones. If the rhetoricians of the past could veer into the future, they

might easily fear for humanity if they knew what our modern day technology was capable of

doing in terms of searching for information and not having to memorize any of it. Although there

are people in this world who still have wonderful memories, and the ability to remember any

kind of information presented to them, there are those of us who are not so fortunate unless we

do exercises and brain games to strengthen our minds into functioning in the manner to which we

would wish them to do.

I included the oral tradition portion of it because oral tradition is rooted in memory, and

without memory, there essentially wouldn’t be oral tradition. The two are synonymous with one

another because it appears as though people cannot have oral tradition without memory, and in

turn, memory is highly important to oral tradition. My grandmother had a wonderful memory,

and she had such active mind even into her passing. She could remember nearly everything. She

always had these amazing stories to share with her three grandchildren and two great-

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grandchildren. She remembered stories from her days in the Great Depression and World War II,

and she could remember even the tiniest of details right down to how much food cost and what

people had to do during the black outs. I wrote a history paper on her for my U.S. Women’s

History course because her information was remarkably detailed. I sadly couldn’t believe much

of what she told me at first until I began researching what told me and discovering she was right.

Her mind was so sharp! I only wished my memory could be as great as hers if and when I ever

become 93 years old.

So one more time, although my journey through the program may not have been a

smooth one, I have created many wonderful memories. If I had to do it all over again, I certainly

would. I have learned how to write and research in ways I never dreamt possible as well as

developing the skills necessary to distinguish the difference between great writing and

arguments, and arguments which can be considered “works in progress”. I have a greater

perception of what great arguments are, and if someone believes an argument to be wrong,

incorrect, or invalid, to trust one’s intuition by checking those facts and statements and

discovering why those statements might be inaccurate. My time in the program is ending here;

however, my story and journey into the next frontier is only beginning.