What’s up Professor Voldstad!

This is Benjamin Brickner from section 053. Personally, I was really nervous going into

UWRT because it was my first college level writing class and I personally think I am not the best

writer. In High School all the college level writing classes I heard of I thought were crazy

because everybody seemed to be doing a lot of in depth thinking that I thought I was not the best

at. It ended up not turning out as bad as I thought and I believe this class actually allowed me to

go outside my comfort zone and grow a lot in that aspect! These days I find it funny because a 2

page paper seems like easy work were as High School I thought I would need at least two weeks

to be able to finish a paper that short because it seemed like overwhelming work. I also actually

learned many concepts that allow me to go deeper in a paper that you described deeper in your

syllabus.

The first concept I want to go over is Rhetorical Knowledge. It took a bit of time trying to

understand its main concept but I believe I was able to learn all of it in the end. There are four

parts to Rhetorical Knowledge that help a writer convey a certain message. These parts

differentiate between different ways they are presented towards the audience. The first part is

Ethos is the credibility of a certain source or of the author. The second part is Logos which

allows a writer to use logic to convey and convince a reader of a specific message. This uses

facts and known knowledge to persuade. I used this in class one day when our class debated

about the best ways to combat bullying. (Whether to use support groups to combat bullying at

the source.) In this debate we had to find many facts about bullying that could support our

argument and have as undeniable resources that prove our point. This worked as a logos of our

argument. The third part is pathos. Pathos allows an author to persuade their argument through
emotions that convey its argument. In my “Studio Week 4: The Rhetorical Situation” I had to

convey my audience, which in this case was you, to convince you that it's a good idea to skip

midterms to go to Hawaii. In this case I say, “I am not wanting to miss your class on purpose,

because trust me, doing learning exercises in class and is way more appealing then having to stay

annoyingly hydrated while sitting on that itchy beach laying in the blistering sun.” I made my

situation seem like it was worse than going to your class which created sympathy on my side. It

also made the case that I liked you class. (Which I am not saying I don’t, I just am using the

general belief that going on vacation is better than class!) The last part Kairos is a combination

of the first three parts. Kairos deals with how well the argument stands in its current times. For

example, I would try to sell silly bands while fidget spinners were popular because silly bands

already had its time and are now in most cases dead to the kid’s minds and they dont see whats

so special about them.

The second topic I would like to go over with you is critical reading. This topic still kinda

seems basic and something that I already know through past schooling. Critical reading to me is

the evaluation of certain passages of writing and ideas. I believe the things I learned this

semester is more about the in depth things about it. While writing this I am starting to see I have

the wrong idea of it. Critical reading is the use of researched information, and studying them

deeply to be able to use them in certain writings and papers that I had to do. Over the semester I

used critical writing a lot and actually was able to use it in other classes. I used critical reading in

my Annotated Bibliography, I had do lots of research that allowed me to understand my topic for

my Mini-Ethnography. This made my Mini-Ethnography a lot better than if I were to not use in-

depth knowledge like I usually don’t. One example in my Mini-Ethnography is, “...but in this

case it is using many scientific principles and advanced technology to allow the robot map out its
surroundings. Some sensors include Infrared sensors (Senses light), Ultrasonic sensor (Uses

sound to measure distance), and a lot more. (Adrian 2011)” During this part I was describing

how robots see their environment. At the end of this assignment you told me that I did a great job

and the assignment was rich with information and supporting detail which made me so happy

because I usually get the opposite reactions from previous teachers. Now I can see that this

process helps a lot.

Best,

Benjamin Brickner, UWRT 1104 Section 053