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Colton Lee
Ms. Monica Rowe
English 1010, Period 2B
March 31, 2016
Self-Reflection Paper
Processs
The first assignment in English 1010 that I believed to be beneficial to my writing
experience was the first person narrative. In doing the first person narrative I was able to learn
various writing strategies to connect with the audience. Word usage such as metaphors, similes
and various phrases gave life to my writings and allowed for me to introduce ways to attract and
connect with my audience. Take for example an excerpt from my first draft, I evaluated the
adults, they seemed to be bickering amongst themselves, so I paid them no mind. In my revision
I replaced a general statement with a metaphor, Shuddering, I evaluate the adults, whose
bickering resembles the most esteemed businessmen at a flea market, haggling to save pennies
from a dime. It is in my belief that I improved upon my writing from this writing assignment
because I was able to learn ways to liven up my writing and garner my audiences attention with
these skills.
In writing the the analysis paper for Jean Twenges various articles and excerpts from her
book Generation Me I learned various ways to connect with my audience and understand, in
detail, how to relate to their perspective. Rhetorical analysis played a large part in the flaws of
my essay, through large sections of my analysis I would include information that a reader, who
was not familiar with Twenges writing, would not understand completely. Of the biggest
criticism of my analysis was that I would mention is Twenges use of emotional appeal in

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Generation Me on Trial. In her argument she brings up the case where a University student
committed suicide. In my essay I would elaborate on how this was an appeal to emotion or ethos
and how it attracted the audience effectively. What I failed to do was inform the reader of the
incident instead saying only Jean Twenge appealed to emotion in her article Generation Me on
Trial and used various means of passionate words. In this experience I was able to learn from
my mistakes and improve upon myself and my ability to use rhetoric with an audience.
One of my early writing assignments involved analyzing advertisements and the various
means of which companies would appeal to their target audience. Among the advertisement that I
analyzed was a voting ad, emphasizing the importance to vote. Throughout the advertisement,
there were strong uses of ethos or emotional appeal, uses of patriotism and national pride made
its way into symbolic means. These means were those such as colors, stars, stripes and the
patriotic Uncle Sam. Because of this advertisement analysis I realized that there were more ways
to appeal to an audience with means other than statistics or logic based arguments, that it is
possible to make people care for something.
Subject
When I wrote my response paper on Henry A. Girouxs Fascism in Donald Trumps
United States I was able to use the various writing strategies that I learned throughout the year.
When I first started out, I realized that I had to understand the purpose of the article just as well
as the author had intended and why the author felt that way in the first place. Inconsequentially
this resulted in various agreements and disagreements with the author. In my analytical response
I criticized Giroux for not telling the whole truth in the matter of Donald Trumps campaign,
Giroux claimed that Donald Trump was being protected and supported by mainstream media and
intellectuals in the U.S. This was simply just not true, in fact the opposite was more true than

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Giroux statement, since Trump is bombarded daily with criticisms from mainstream media
centers and critics such as Giroux himself. This analytical response felt more like it was a way to
reinforce what I believed in, because generally I approved mostly of what Giroux said in his
article. Though I do disagree with the author on some points, that should only be natural since
there is only one me, I have to stand for the ideals I believe in even if others do not. In this
assignment I learned how to analyze ideals and experiences expressed in articles and media
sources and how to assert my opinion critically that aligns with my ideology.
Rhetoric
When I was writing my response essay I imagined that my audience was of the voting
age and had a sincere care for politics. I envisioned that the audience at least watches some
source of media outlet such as CNN, FOX News, MSNBC among others and paid attention to
politics enough to have an idea where they stand on the political spectrum and are curious as to
what the presidential candidates stand for in this upcoming election. In many ways the audience
influenced my writing since I had to take a mostly neutral, but critical, stance to assert my
opinions and do my best to cover not only what I believe, but not indulge enough to protrude my
bias onto others. Because of this neutral stance I also had to use a more formal tone of voice but I
wasnt hesitant to use emotional appeal in my essay as well to give some diversity in my
arguments. Probably the ethical appeals made me the most pleased with my essay especially the
parts where I brought up that the US stands up for the freedoms of speech, press and assembly
and even a man such as Donald Trump is ought to be protected by such rights even if I disagree
with him. I think the risks I took in this paper was using people that I know and my previous
knowledge on politics to strengthen my arguments against Giroux. In many part of his essay,
Giroux claimed that Donald Trump was destroying civil liberties and how he is a threat to

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democracy and is a proof of concept that Fascism is growing in the United States. My response
was a counter argument of how protesters had been disrupting Trumps campaign rallies and
disrupting a democratic elective process, this was something that I had known off the top of my
head but I was not sure whether it counted as an outside source or not. Those inevitably were
some risks I took when I claimed against Girouxs statements, but I do not believe theyre deeply
researched enough to count as outside research, but rather these facts should be common sense to
the audience that I appealed to.