Persuasive Speech Analysis: Process

I really liked the way I delivered my speech. It helped that I was speaking about something I was passionate about, because it allowed me to vary my inflection. But I wouldn't have been able to do that without a long time researching and adding logos, ethos, pathos, and other rhetorical devices in order to make my speech more convincing. 

My speech was mostly logos, and I struggled to make some parts ethos and pathos, because I didn't know how to connect with my audience on an ethical and emotional level. Instead, I just stuck to logos: logic, statistics, and facts. I think, in this sense, I need to improve on research; I didn't want to bore my audience by just spitting out fact after fact after fact. In the end, though, it's what I ended up doing.

Even though I had mostly logical arguments, my favorite was the first sentence - a rhetorical question: "Did you know that every single piece of plastic still exists?" I hoped that it caught my audience's attention. However, I'm really proud that I was able to choose a topic that I was thoroughly interested in and really believed in. And at first, I wanted to do something related to Feminism - however, there weren't any ballots that I found that related to women's rights...at least, nothing that appealed to me.

So, I went to #2 on my list of passions: the environment. Knowing that only recently California opted to ban the plastic bag and that there was a lot of backlash against it, I decided to convince my classmates a) why the plastic bag is detrimental to the environment, and b) how reusable bags are better.

If I could do the research process over again, I'd opt to use pathos or ethos better; like I said earlier, I hoped that I didn't bore my audience.

MLK Speech Analysis Reflection: Product

I'm proud of the way I was able to identify pathos, ethos, and logos in the speech analysis for our summative. I liked the way I was able to annotate the speech, because with all the practice that we did before, it really prepared me for how to actually annotate the speech. The annotations helped me discover which rhetorical device to use when writing down the quote. However, I think I need to work on identifying rhetorical devices. It was easy for me to realize that a certain section was either pathos, ethos, or logos, but within that section it was a little difficult for me to figure out which rhetorical device it was using. If I was able to do it again, I would perhaps listen to the speech again more carefully, and while doing that note the tone with which Dr. King said parts of the speech. Perhaps this way it would be much easier for me to figure out which rhetorical device.

Blog: Argument Reflection

What I did well: I am most proud of my claim, since it took me over a week to fully understand what exactly a claim was and several drafts to finally end up with the one I used. Otherwise, I am happy with the way I lead the essay forward by having evidence from Act 1 in the first paragraph, Act 2 in the second paragraph, etc. And although there is always room for improvement, I believe I also blended quotes well.

What was a struggle? Although in the end I managed to write a claim that I was very proud of, I still think that I need more practice writing them. Apart from the claim, as the comments said, I need to expand more on Acts 2 and 3, by giving more evidence. I have a lot of "How? Explain further"s on my essay, which goes to say that I need to definitely expand more on my body paragraphs.

What will I work on for next time? For next time, I definitely will work more on explaining further and going deeper into the text. I also need more help analyzing the text so that I can find a claim and evidence that supports that claim.

Shared Inquiry Reflection

September 22, 2014

1. What am I most proud of?

I'm most proud of my ability to ask a question (specifically, "Does America dive into solving problems without thinking about the benefits and drawbacks of doing so?") which helped the discussion move forward. I also don't think I dominated the discussion, because I felt that all my group members participated equally and I could jump in easily to give my point without interrupting or awkward silences.

2. What do I need to work on?

Although I liked the question I posed, I believe that I need to become better at thinking deeper while reading and annotating the piece - most of the questions I have are those that have to do with understanding it better, not what the author meant by them; most of the connections I write down are of those relating to me that I don't ever think will help the discussion; and most of the time, I don't have a lot of insight.

3. What did I learn? (Process, Prep, Content)

I learned how to prepare well by using the content to its fullest - if I made a clear attempt to take the piece apart, to understand what the author was saying, I noticed it was easier to come up with things to say that would help the discussion move forward. The way I used quotes to back up my 'argument' validated my points, which gave room for counter-arguments and more discussion.

Tone Movie

What I'm proud of:

I believe that my tone movie uses images that help create a distinct, innovative tone that also matches the tone of interpreted text. The video's voice track is clear, and understandable. My voice also uses inflection to enhance the mood, and I recited the poem at a pace that accents the emotion. Similarly, the music creates an innovative tone, but it is not very different from the tone the images create.

What I need to work on:

I need to work on video editing skills. I do not think that the effects captured the essence of the text. I'm not very experienced with making movies (not including videos of me just speaking) in Windows Movie Maker - this project gave me a lot of experience. I also need to find better images, and although it made an impact on the mood of the poem, I wish I found better ones.