Reflection

While first coming into the class thinking I was way in over my head as far as rhetoric and composition goes, I think I have been able to get a better grasp on it since the first week. Before taking this class, I was just like all the other students, thinking rhetoric was something way too hard that I do not even want to begin to understand. Likewise, I thought composition was just the process of writing an essay, or something similar. Of course, after reading everything we have read, and doing the projects/blogs, I’ve realized there is more to it than just what I initially thought. Rhetoric has so many key terms, and while you may not need to know every single one, I think there are a few that definitely help you get the big picture on what rhetoric is. The main ones for rhetoric are rhetorical situation, and rhetorical discourse, while for composition they are audience and style. I think that while these terms may be in different categories, they still overlap, much like the overlapping of rhetoric and composition (which is then no surprise and why they are so often paired with the ‘and’ preposition).


In terms of knowledge, I do believe knowledge always exists, but that does not always mean that everyone has it. Knowledge will always exists because there will always be someone that will have more knowledge on any particular topic than you do. In that case, I do think there can be “new” knowledge, but only to that individual who was not previously aware of it and was taught by someone else. Because of this, then in a way you can say you are relying heavily on prior knowledge to base whatever it is that you are learning about. Which goes hand in hand with the idea of remediation, since you are basing the new modified work off of previous knowledge of something else. To me, knowledge is how aware and informed you are on something specific. I do not think it has to be something scholarly, but just about anything. You can have knowledge on TV shows or films, but you can also be knowledgeable of mechanical aspects. Knowledge is something I am definitely attempting to achieve in this class, especially with all the “new” information I have been studying on rhetoric and composition. This is a perfect example of what I was saying earlier, because although these studies have been around for centuries, to me, it is all new, and mostly based on prior knowledge of the terms.


Every time I think of the word reflection, I think of that Christina Aguilera song she did for the Mulan movie, but I know that there is more to reflection than just what you see when you look into a mirror. I think reflection is a very important part in the composition process, because it is kind of what completes it. It’s pretty cool that we get to reflect on our projects after we’ve finished them, because it gives us a second to look back and see what we’ve done. Much like this assignment, I think with reflection, we are able to step back and take a look at the overall project, but still have time to scrutinize the little details we may have missed at first. In a way, I guess you could say that it is pretty similar to looking into a mirror. While you are getting dressed, you don’t really look at the overall appearance, you just concentrate on sections (shoes, top, hair, makeup), but once you step back and look at the whole image, you may notice a couple of hairs out of place, or that you could use a little bit more eye shadow on one lid, or maybe that you need an extra piece of jewelry. Reflection allows you to see what you’ve done and what can be done to fix it, and I think this is just as important as every other aspect in the composition project.