Peterson 1

12/9/2020

Concurrent English 1010

Reflection

One rhetorical concept that I learned in this unit was pathos, logos, and ethos. Because

we wrote an essay based on these concepts, I was able to thoroughly understand them and gain

experience using them in my own writing. Before this assignment, I had no clue what Pathos,

Logos, or Ethos meant and I definitely wouldn't find out if it weren't for the essay we all had to

write. These strategies connect to the threshold concept called rhetoric because these three

concepts are rhetorical strategies in themselves. Writing my rhetorical analysis essay helped me

understand the connection between the two. The document that describes Pathos, Logos, and

Ethos was also extremely helpful in giving me a basic understanding of the concepts.

It was slightly hard for me to understand the importance of the steps of writing a text. Not

all of the elements seem quite necessary to me. For example, I didn't understand the need for a

revision process ​and ​an editing process. I think that it would make things much more simple if

these two steps were combined, especially at the level of writing we are doing in class. Other

than this, most everything that we've talked about in class has made sense.

I don't think my writing habits and strategies have changed over the course of this unit. I

do believe that my understanding of rhetoric has completely changed because of the rhetorical

analysis essay and the analysis of Lou Gehrig's speech. I am certain that these assignments will

benefit my writing in the future when I get more chances to use and understand rhetoric. I also

was able to understand more the importance of context in my writing and the work of others. For

example, it is imperative to understand the context of Lou Gehrig's speech to fully understand
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what a crucial moment in his life this was and the lives of Yankees fans. Similarly, in the case of

the rhetorical analysis essay, it is key to include context. Without it, the reader can be potentially

lost in the significance of the essay and the author's intentions.

I have already made grammatical changes to my essay such as italicizing the name of the

article's source and adding and eliminating punctuation where needed. What I still need to do is

further research the context of the article to get a better understanding of my author's intentions. I

plan to look more closely at lds.org which is a key portion of the article I am analyzing. I also

plan to further research the me too movement that I mention in my essay to identify the

relevance of the movement in relation to the essay's topic and motive. I find it hard to make

drastic changes to the article which come from another perspective that interfere with the

motives I have already established as the writer. I find it hard to add additional things to my

essay that don't come directly from my brain or point of view.