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My name is Nikki, I am a music major at UCCS. This is my first semester back in college for a few years but I am actually enjoying it this time. I'm from Florida originally, but I've lived here in Colorado Springs for about 3 years now. I have a cat who is my pride and joy. He is 5 years old, black and huge. <3 My passion is to perform music.

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“Like the gears and cogs in a clock, all of these separate rhetorical strategies and appeals work very well in conjunction with one another toward one ultimate goal of writing a persuasive piece of literature. They set up an environment of engagement and receptivity.”

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This excerpt is from my final draft of Paper 1. Included it to show an example of an early attempt of mine at sounding intellectual with my clever simile. In this way I was trying to build on my ethos as someone who knows a thing or two about writing.

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I learned from this essay and its correlated reading how to construct a paper in a better way than I had known. Before I would spend a lot of time making a strong first draft, this time however I just used stream of consciousness and this phrase came out of that.

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“We come across countless ads in our lifetimes, so having a solid understanding of the tools used in the creation of these will help us retain our sense of agency and choice. Being informed always leads to better choices. ”

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This is from my final draft of Paper 2 which I did on Hirschberg's "The Rhetoric of Advertising". I included this to show that I understand one big point he was trying to get across, which was that rhetoric is important in many aspects of life and analyzing these advertisements critically would help me understand more about rhetoric in everyday life too.

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This essay and corresponding piece taught me a lot about specific rhetorical strategies that are used commonly, and also how they can be applied to other aspects of life.

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“It was cold

I’m always cold

It was dark

I had friends but

Who are they really?

We approach the house

We have a plan

We know what we’re in for

Or so we thought

There it was; roaming

Not where we’d expected

Caught off-guard

We instigate a fight

Before it goes down it gets

One of us

Later, back where we’re familiar

One of us

Becomes one of them

We fight again

Now what is familiar

Seems less so

There is introduced discomfort

Fear

Mistrust

Before it’s slain

It gets me

Now I am them

I see clearly who I am

What I’m fighting for

I’m fighting for my freedom

To get away from this trap

Of feeble familiarity

Taking as many as I can with me

Enemies? Friends?

What are we?

Now I know”

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I included this writing sprint I wrote on the topic of a recent dream I had to show a bit of creative writing moment that sprang out of a random 5 minute writing prompt. I can't say all my sprints were close to this coherent but I'm proud of what I whipped up here in such a short time. Based on a real dream I had.

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I learned that I do have the ability to write creatively if I let go of some self conscious behavior and write what my heart and brain want to write.

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"On the particular day that James Veitch encountered the situation of receiving a spam email from one, Solomon Odonkoh, he decided he had finally reached his breaking point and wanted to do something about it. This moment was his exigence. He could no longer sit idly by while these scammers got to spend all their free time sapping money from saps. Through his skillful use of rhetorical tools like appeals to ethos, pathos, and logos, he manages to effectively waste this scammer's time for the sake of us all, bless ‘im."

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This excerpt is from Journal 5, on James Veitch's TEDtalk. I included it to show an earlier example of me writing as rhetor. My intention with this journal was to write in such a way to convince the reader that my opinion was the correct one to have.

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I learned from this assignment and James Veitch, the power of being a strong rhetor. He was able to hold on to the scammer's attention and make a real impact with only his words.

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“Reading this speech showed me how powerful words can truly be. Anyone can say anything, but, if it is persuasive enough, those words could do work for us (like convincing a room full of people that women should be allowed to vote).”

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This is an excerpt from the final draft of my third paper this semester. It was a synthesis of a few pieces, but this particular section was specifically on Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I a Woman" speech. I included this to show my understanding of the concept of the power of rhetoric in real life examples.

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I learned from this assignment, how important it is to continuously study and practice with rhetoric. It is in every communication we make in one way or another, and the pieces I chose to synthesize were great examples of rhetoric making an impact in the real world.

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I just…

Well if…

I guess…

It’s important to pause

To think

To be in the moment

To see

To feel

Even when things are chaotic

Even when things are moving too fast

We’ll always have the now

We’ll always have a moment

Think

Breathe

Pause

Listen

These ideas will lead us to happiness

These ideas will lead us to success

These ideas will fight off stress

If we take time to be present in the moment

Just a little time

The whole world may be different

The whole world may feel different

The specific things we’re stressing about

In the future or in the past

They aren’t affecting us in this moment

We can breathe and feel calm

We can breathe and know that we are only human

We can breathe and know that we are doing our best

To pause is to heal

To pause is for no one but ourselves

Yet to pause may still help those around us

When we are calm

We motivate others to feel this way

Maybe they will pause too”

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This is my writing sprint for one of the topics about taking a pause. I included this piece because it was another example of me feeling like I was managing to write with any sort of originality and command of words. Both of the writing sprints I included were in the form of poetry, but unlike the other, this one is also trying to convince the reader to consider taking pauses so it is an example of me incorporating some rhetoric into my poem.

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I learned when writing this that when I believe something is true, it is easier for me to write about effectively. I didn't have much time to write this, but the flow of the argument came out just because I already believed it to be true.

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Throughout this class I believe I've learned more about writing than any other writing or English oriented class I've taken. Studying rhetoric really made a lot clear about my writing process and also about understanding other people's writings. I had never broken down persuasive documents, ads or essays before this class but I found that helped me with my personal writing techniques quite a bit.

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It was challenging, especially at first, understanding which tools were being used exactly. Especially in regards to appeals to pathos. Those appeals would slip under my radar all to often as I would just feel their effect but move on without specifically identifying why certain things made me feel any type of way at all. As the semester went on, however, I do feel like I was able to wrap my head around that particular type of rhetoric. I'm better able now to identify those appeals as well as all other types of rhetorical appeals through the practice we've had doing so.

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I appreciated beginning the class everyday with a writing sprint. I felt those really did help me get in the mindset of thinking critically as the evening class time had me tired and cloudy when coming in many times. I appreciated the workload because it wasn't too heavy but I still had to designate a good amount of time to studying, learning and applying my knowledge on the assignments. In this way, I feel like I retained a lot of what I was learning. I appreciated Ms. Winters' straightforward teaching method and honest feedback, as I always felt it was intended to help me learn or grow in some way.

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This project of mine deserves an A. I put attention toward the information I included. Not just random or unrelated content; I put focus on keeping it relevant, concise and informative. I stayed aware of what content I should include, and what my audience might like to see about me or my growth in the class. I used examples that are either entertaining, or didactic in nature to keep it interesting. I made a real effort in my choices of artifacts. I wanted to show the different areas where I had the opportunity to apply my newfound knowledge and the skills I had been learning in class. This project is the culmination of all the major themes I learned about and applied to my own writing. I made it as concise as possible, so as to get the point across without giving reason to lose attention or focus before the end. I believe I checked all the boxes. Plus, there's a very cute pic of my cat Bean!!