Month: December 2015

My Writing Portrait-Revised is a revision of essay #1 “My Writing Portrait”. The basic concepts of this essay stayed the same, but new thoughts and ideas were added to strengthen the essay.

“Essay #1-My Writing Portrait” being my first ever college essay was a very nerve racking essay to write. When I sat down at my computer a week before the essay was due I came to the realization that I hadn’t really wrote a true essay since my junior year of high school. I remember saying to myself “that I will never get this done because I cannot even remember the basics of writing”. After that panic started to fade though I remembered what we had read in Writing and Rhetoric class that day. What we read was an article titled “Shitty First Drafts” and what that article emphasized was to just write no matter how shitty it sounds. So I did just that. I took the key points we were supposed to write on and I just started to type whatever I could think of that was in the realm of those key points. The first thing that came to my mind was my writing past. My writing past was pretty dramatic so that part of my essay came to me with easy. If that was the only key point I was allowed to write on for the five page essay I probably could have done it. The section titled “The Role of Writing” also came very easy to me. The section though that I struggled with was the section titled “Projecting into the Future”. This section was hard to write about due to the fact that it hasn’t happened yet. With some thought though, and by asking instructors of mine who have been members of the career fields that I plan to join, I formulated what my future writing endeavors might be.

Hi! I am Alec Hoopes, I am a 19 year old rat at the Virginia Military Institute. I come from a little town in Western Pennsylvania called Latrobe. Latrobe is the home town of Mr. Rodgers and Arnold Palmer. It is also the birthplace of professional football and the banana split. I am very proud to come from Latrobe and someday when the time is right hope to return and settle down there. My family consists of my mother, Jackie, a biology teacher at Latrobe High School, my father Art, a business owner, my sister, Maddie, a Junior at the University of Connecticut, and my brother, Clark, a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh.

In my free time I enjoy outdoor activities. The outdoor activity that I enjoy the most is hiking. I have hiked many trails in Pennsylvania and I have also hiked some of the trails in Lexington. Second to hiking in the order of activities I enjoy is hunting. I have always loved being in the woods and I have hunted almost every year since I was about 9 years old.

My major at VMI is Civil Engineering. I chose Civil Engineering as my major because I have always enjoyed large construction projects and it always fascinated me how things all come together. While pursuing a major in Civil Engineering I also intend to commission in the United States Army. I have always had an interest in joining the military and it is the main reason why I chose to come to VMI. Picture Citations

Rhetorical Analysis of the Discourse Community of Army ROTC is, as the title states, a rhetorical analysis of the discourse community of Army ROTC. This essay breaks down why Army ROTC is a strong discourse community. It does this by explaining the characteristics of a discourse community and by showing how these characteristics apply to Army ROTC. This essay also takes John Swales and James Gees ideas and thoughts on what discourse communities are and applies those thoughts an ideas to help explain the discourse community of Army ROTC. “Rhetorical Analysis of the Discourse Community of Army ROTC” also gives an analysis on special niche of Army ROTC. That niche being that Army ROTC is a mushfake discourse community. Using many genres of the discourse community of Army ROTC like the Army Ranger Handbook, Blackboard, and MS1 PowerPoints, the idea of Army ROTC being a mushfake discourse community is explained. Hopefully after reading this essay you will have a better understanding of discourse communities and Army ROTC.

Rhetorical Analysis of “Learning to Read” By Malcom X is an essay that analyzes Malcolm X’s work titled “Learning to Read”. This essay gives a brief summary of “Learning to Read” and gives Malcolm X’s purpose in writing this article. This essay also explains rhetorical features/strategies that Malcolm X used that were affective an ineffective to his work. It shows you, the reader, the struggle that Malcolm X faces in his writing. That struggle being the over use of pathos (Drawing that personal connection with the reader) and the under use of logos (Use of logic or giving factual examples) in his work. Many examples from the text “Learning to Read” are used throughout this essay to really give context for the thesis that Malcolm X struggled using rhetorical features properly. After reading this essay, which analyzes Malcolm X’s writing, you may have a better understanding of who Malcolm X was and why he was an influential character in U.S. history.

My Writing Portrait is a rhetorical analysis of writing through my eyes. In this essay I explain what writing is in its simplest form, my experiences with writing in the past, and where I see myself going in the future with writing. “My Writing Portrait” gives a unique view on what writing really is and the significant role it plays in society today. With that unique view this essay also gives my personal story of the hardships and struggles that I faced with writing over the years. It tells you the story of how I started at the very bottom of the writing spectrum and eventually worked my way to a point where I could be decently successful in my writing endeavors.  Lastly “My Writing Portrait” will tell you where I see myself going with writing in the future and how I might use writing in the careers that I plan to peruse.