Victoria Saucedo

RWS 3355
May 6, 2016
Reading Reflections

At the start of this semester, I honestly wasnt exactly sure of what this course was really
about in the first place. Since its listed as an English course, I thought that maybe it would entail
some literature readings like those that I have previously experienced in English dual credit
courses. In a way, it was similar to this in that we had to write weekly discussion posts from the
readings, but the readings themselves were nothing like I expected. In fact, in the beginning it
felt a lot more like a philosophy class than a writing course. Soon, however, I learned to adapt to
this completely different style of readings and information regarding rhetoric. Before this class, I
think my reading style was not too complicated. For instance, I read as any other person reads,
but at the same time I also try to keep in mind what the words really mean to the piece itself. In
my literature courses, I had to deeply analyze and explore the significance of every word and
how they contributed to elements such as foreshadowing and personification. In this way, I think
this previous practice in examining these kind of readings helped me with these more theoretical
articles.
Throughout this semester, we have had several readings and articles that have helped in
my overall understanding of this course. At first, my interaction with them was me trying to
study and read them as I did literature readings. Even though this practice did help me, I also
started to read them as if they were philosophical principles. This style made more sense

considering that I needed to understand these foundational concepts before moving on to see how
they applied to real life situations.
There were a couple of readings that were fairly simple and easily comprehendible, but
most of them were very intellectually stimulating and tedious. Some that I found most
challenging would probably be the ones first read at the very beginning of the semester. For
instance, I remember feeling confused and a little frustrated at times when trying to read and
understand the many pages of theory about the rhetorical situation and all its components. The
readings from those such as Bitzer, Vatz, Consigny, and Miller took a while for me to fully grasp
the concepts of each. However, this makes sense considering one such as myself who had no
prior knowledge of the rhetorical situation whatsoever. In this way, these difficult readings
eventually made sense to me and helped build the foundation of what communication is about.
This is why I would say that I learned the most from these readings and that they impacted me
the most as well. Even though it was logically challenging at times, reading these articles helped
me to think in a different way, specifically the way a good rhetor would think. It taught me about
the rhetorical situation and all its included aspects such as the audience, constraints, purpose,
exigence, discourse, genres, topics, ethos, pathos, logos, and much more. These many principles
then taught me how to effectively communicate with family, friends, employers, co-workers, and
everyone in between. I can say that I now know how to adapt to different situations and
communication styles in my personal and most of all professional business community as I go
forward into my desired job occupation.