It is interesting writing this reflection of myself as a writer for a second time. When I wrote it last semester, it was very easy to see the transformation. I came into the previous class with no knowledge of what rhetoric is and no real system of creating a completed paper. By the end of that term, I was analyzing the rhetoric of different sources and developed a method for writing a paper. This time around, it is a bit different. Having grown so much as a writer in our previous class, I came into 2150 wondering, “How else can I grow?”. Thinking about it, this semester, I feel that I grew in the one area that I struggled the most last semester, and that is taking risks. I attempted to do so last semester, but I still mainly stuck with what was comfortable for me. This semester, however, all of the projects we have done have a significant element of risk taking in them.

This semester had a lot of flexibility in terms of the topics we wrote about. You would assign a paper with general guidelines as to what you are looking for and leave the rest up to us. This flexibility has allowed my creativity to run wild. I was able to explore realms beyond what I already know and think about each paper differently. I believe that this is one of the main reasons why I have been able to take a lot of risks with each project this semester. The element of creativity naturally allowed for it.

In our first paper, we were asked to analyze the metaphors in a cultural artifact. I chose to write my paper on the television series Prison Break, where I explored the metaphor of “life is a prison”. I really enjoyed writing this paper as it covered a topic that I am very passionate about, income inequality. In the paper, I reasoned that the lives of people feel like prison because they are controlled by the rich and elite, who constantly tell those beneath them what to do, when to do it, and how to do it. Initially, I struggled mightily with this paper; I was unsure of which direction I wanted to go in. My first idea was to say that life feels like a prison because people do the same, routine things every day. But, after writing a rough draft of this idea, and our conference on the paper, I saw that it was difficult to find enough points to support that thesis. Thereafter, I decided to connect the thesis to the topic of income inequality, which I was able to find a lot of support in, including a parallel to a movie from the 1980’s.

For the next paper, we had to develop a research-based argument over the concept of a single story. I must say, this paper was especially fun to write. To nobody’s surprise, I chose to argue about the stereotype of Wall Streeters. In a way, there was an element of risk in doing so. A significant portion of the American population sees Wall Street as evil and greedy; so, in arguing against that, I would have to provide strong points against such claim. To support my argument, I showed how the media portrays Wall Street in bad light through different mediums, such as movies, books, and news articles. Through extensive research, I found that the stereotype really took off in the 1980’s. Now that I had my timeframe narrowed, I began to look for movies, books and news articles that exacerbated the stereotype. What I found was quite surprising; each successive book and movie seemed to build upon one another. As such, I structured the paper in chronological order, starting from the eighties to the most recent movie in 2014. Of all the paper from both 2100 and 2150, this is the one I am proud of the most, as I was able to incorporate my passion in a solid argument.

Our final project was the remediation of the research-based paper. In this project, we were asked to remediate the previous paper into a multi-media format and analyze what rhetorical affordances we gained. This had to be the most fun project of them all, as it really let our creativity run wild. Initially, I had no idea how I wanted to remediate the paper. But, after watching the TEDTalk on Creative Commons by Lawrence Lessig, I knew I wanted to model my remediation after that. In his talk, Lessig was narrating his argument while key words and pictures were being displayed behind him. I took the same approach, narrating a simplified version of my paper while key words display on the screen. I feel this remediation is best suited to address a general audience, as it is simplified, and having the words on the screen captures the viewer’s attention.

It has been a great pleasure to be in both of your classes this year. I really feel that I am now able to choose the proper rhetoric for different types of papers that I could apply to different classes. You have been my most influential English teacher and I truly appreciate all that you have done.