One thing that I learned about this unit that I did not really realize before was that rhetorical devices are used alot in social movements. What I understood already was that one Indian farmer’s protest was a really large movement that happened because of the government but now I’ve  learned a lot more about why it was happening and what people are doing to combat it. Something that I am most proud about in this unit is that we get to write about what we want to and also connect it to our unit which connects to our learning objectives. Something I would add is more quotes because I do alot of my own writing with little quotes. I would describe my participation and engagement as good but I could have done better. It was midterms week so everyone including myself was somewhat stressed. One thing I did was take breaks in between writing as we went over it in class and also use a writing timer. I feel I did better in this unit due to me feeling better in writing essays. One thing I would like to discuss further is more laws that have not been covered in the media because the governments in many other countries hide things.

     Something that I learned in this unit that I did not know before was the political activism that gripped the nation from the late 60s to early 70s. I had assumed that US citizens have always generally backed the country when we enter a war, as a common enemy has the general effect of uniting the people. This was the case in the American Revolution and both of the World Wars. However, in the case of the Vietnam War, I did not know that there was such a large part of the American population that opposed the US’s involvement. We specifically focused on student activism, which I believe was a good choice as it increased the material’s relevance to us as students ourselves. The theme of political activism for this unit was one that exposed me to the intricacies of the political environs during the Vietnam War and changed my understanding of the aims of the civil rights movement. It had never crossed my mind that apathy to the cause was such a great obstacle to overcome for civil rights leaders, but MLK’s words in his Beyond Vietnam speech conveyed that convincing people that inaction conflicted with his goals was a great burden to him. “A time comes when silence is betrayal”

     While I feel that I learned everything that my professor expected of me in this unit I do have a couple questions regarding the anti-war movement opposing the Vietnam War. My central curiosity is to what degree these protests affected the withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam, if at all. Secondly I would have liked to learn more about the key civil rights leaders involved in the movement and what sparked the rapid activism in the 60s for social justice. Despite slavery’s abolishment taking place half a century prior, what was the catalyst for change from the 60s-70s that was not present in previous decades?

     A main strength of my writing in this unit was the research that I did for the topic. While it could be argued that I was given the tools through the library session and some of my sources came from the class materials, regardless the sources I used for my paper were extremely relevant to my topic and useful in proving my claims. I am most proud of my use of comparisons across different people as evidence to show the similarities between them. If I were to revise my writing I would make sure the sentence structures were better as I rushed to complete the paper, and I might change the sequence of ideas, as I felt at the end that perhaps I should have said some things before others. 

     I would rate my engagement in the unit as very high as I completed all my assignments and put in a lot of effort in my responses, however participation in person was very low for me as I have trouble speaking publicly, despite having some things to say. Something that I did in this unit that helped me be successful was doing the readings so that I would understand what the professor was talking about. Besides understanding during class I also saw that the readings would directly improve my writing as I had more ideas to comment on and rhetorical devices to experiment with. In the last unit there was a greater emphasis on writing skills and understanding rhetoric, which I thought had a broader application on our lives in the future. This unit focused more on political history and the uses of rhetoric throughout it, and while it is important to show examples of how rhetoric has been applied with varying degrees of success in real-world situations, I would argue that these examples should be limited in their use; their purpose is showing students why they should learn about rhetoric. I think showing examples of rhetoric should be a resource used in every unit as opposed to just one.

     I think that I performed worse in this unit as a student as I submitted a couple of assignments past their due date and I have not been able to improve much on my participation. However, I am satisfied that my writing has improved since the last unit thanks to the rhetorical devices we practice in the book and the exposure of information we get from class. I hope to progress steadily to achieve my goals as a writer.

1. For me the really interesting thing in this chapter was get to know some of CCNY history, about strikes and racism movements that been here over 100 years ago. As an international student I had no idea about it and even students that come from New York didn’t know that. 
2. Maybe better understand is not correct word for this but I really started thinking more about racism. I want to get to know more about this topic.
3. I was thinking about it and that things are being discovered while learning, if we learn about some topic and we get interest to it, we will ask ourselves a question “what if…?”. So to answer the question I don’t really know for that moment. 
4. I’m the most proud of research I did for Rhetorical Analysis essay. I’ve been researching information for that topic for really long time.
5. To be honest maybe I would change the topic, because now I think that was kinda controversial. I’m not sure was it right.
6. I would give me a solid 9/10 because like I always say “always can be better”.
7. Research that’s the most powerful thing and it good research really helps.
8. Those units were kinda similar in my opinion, and I really enjoy it, I really enjoy this class.
9. I have absolutely no idea.
10. I think every resource we could have we actually had. Internet is the most powerful resource and we had it. Books, screenshots of books pages, we had that.
11. I won’t say about things to change but thinks I like in this class. It’s connection, talking personally with every student and than describing this thoughts to the class.
12. At today’s classes we had really interesting topic, we’ve mentioned many of topics that we don’t understand and we could talk about them in future classes.

In this unit, even though it was short, I learned more about the different uses of rhetoric that can be found in many social movements that are pro or against said movement. Different creators of the images or videos may use ethos differently to either promote a disdain for their side while others may promote an inclusive understanding to get people to agree. 

I already knew that people should look at social movements with an open mind because many of us including myself write off a movement or fully agree without looking at the other side or investigating things yourself. Another thing is the use of certain rhetorical devices and how organizations use fear appeal to scare us to use their product or do what they want. 

I wanted to learn more about the different sides of the movement for representation in city college. For example I would’ve wanted to know what the faculty’s reasons were as to why the students were mainly white.

I think that my main strengths for this unit was understanding the different uses of rhetoric and being able to write more. I am most proud of how long I could write especially since the next paper will be around 7-10 pages. 

I would try to revise my words and be more specific when it comes to analyzing the uses of rhetoric. I noticed that some uses are subtle and hard to pic up if you haven’t really seen it pointed out often or new to it like Hypophora or distincto.

I would rate myself at a 6/10 because I could have participated and been more attentive with the assignments. 

During this unit, I looked for examples of the uses of rhetoric to give me a better understanding of how to use them in the exercises. 

I think this unit was slightly harder because the previous unit was more of a write what you want to talk about and create your story versus write about something from this specific topic. However once I found a topic, I was able to meet the writing target. 

One thing I would do differently would be to read more uses of rhetoric instead of specific and plain examples.

I wish there were essay examples for the rhetorical analysis so that I would have a reference in regards to how to structure my essay.

I wouldn’t recommend anything other than including more examples to give use a better understanding. My favorite activity was analyzing the ok Cupid pictures because I never saw them before (I didn’t take the trains much anymore after the pandemic) and I also saw videos of people complaining about the images being on public transportation where kids can see. There also weren’t any activities that I didn’t like or felt were ineffective. 

1. What do you feel like you learned about this unit that you didn’t know before? I definitely learned more about how rhetorical devices are used in social movements and how different rhetorical devices can be used to connect different perspectives of different people to create one big message.
2. What did you already know , but now understand better or learned more about? I already understood a little more about how rhetorical devices play an important role in society and also I learned much more about how Aristotle’s 3 appeals can help play a role during the discussions with the social movements as well as applying this knowledge to the 2nd paper. 
3. What are the strengths of the writing you did for this unit? What are you most proud of? The strengths of the writing I did this unit improved on the level that I became more aware of what I write. For example, if a sentence was to not make sense for any reason like grammar, punctuation,etc then I would right away be able to notice and make some corrections to it. 
4. If you were to revise the writing you did for this unit, what would you want to do differently? For the 2nd paper, I did notice that I do sound a little formal in the paper, so perhaps I would have changed the way I wrote in terms of writing in my “own” language.
5. How would you describe or rate your participation/engagement in this unit? I think my participation/engagement was sufficient. There is room for improvement, but overall I believe it was sufficient enough.
6. What did you do in this unit that helped make you successful? The improvement in critical thinking for the freewrites in class led to me gaining ideas for my second paper which was a helpful improvement from my perspective.
7. What additional things (resources, support, information, etc.) do you wish you had had for this unit? If anything I’d say some additional tips on how to improve writing in terms of figuring out would be something I wish I had for this unit. 
8. Is there anything you would like me to change (in the structure of our course, in how I’m presenting information, etc.) going forward? In my opinion I don’t have any problems with the structure of the course. 
9.  What were your favorite readings/activities, and which readings/activities didn’t feel effective for you? I think the recent “Beyond Vietnam” readings was not effective for me because even though it was interesting, I didn’t feel the connection with this reading in terms of being engaging in my opinion. The Kent university social movement captured my attention to be my favorite reading because the pictures of the brutality that occurred to the students captured my attention.