In EHR 101 last semester I learned how to examine different types of writing and then preform a rhetorical analysis on multiple or just single pieces of writing. For our first few papers the teacher assigned certain parts of the analysis we had to focus on in that paper and we had to address certain opinions of the author or formulate our own that had text support. This kind of structure in the first couple of papers made grasping the ideas of rhetoric easier for me because in a sense we were given the outcome and just had to find the support.  Later in the semester when we were looking at multiple aspects of a rhetorical analysis and being able to identify them without any clues didn’t seem so hard because we had a lot of practice with modeled examples earlier in the year. At the end of the year we were given a little more freedom to determine our own thesis and what we wanted to look at in the paper with an assignment comparing the adaptations of original work to each other. It was interesting to see how there are multiple examples of rhetoric to examine in a single work. Before taking EHR 101 I didn’t know works could encompass as much rhetoric as some did. Also, being able to write our own thesis at the end of the semester and come up with a plan for our paper on our own allowed us to pick something about the work that interested us so we could then fully submerge ourselves into what we found unique about the work which then leads to a deeper analysis. That by far I think was the best paper I wrote because I got to pick a book, A Clockwork Orange, that I think is one of the most interesting books I have ever read. Burgess put so much thought into every little detail masterfully so when the movie came out and did not do the book justice it seemed almost like a crime. With this assignment being more towards just demonstrating what we learned and few constraints in it I could fully communicate that I learned the desired concepts from this course.

I also learned how to address the common mistake I make in my writing of presenting ideas but never completing them due to tangents or missing a few sentences. I would expand on certain points in a body paragraph but would neglect to put in the last couple of sentences that tied together the point I was trying to make. By omitting these couple sentences it made my writing less effective to the reader. So, the reader at times didn’t fully understand the point or argument I was trying to make. Sometimes I would include outside research in my writing to better support the argument I was trying to make. By the last papers, I had included the research in my papers well enough that it flowed well while supporting the point I was making. In the first couple papers the research supported it and was relevant but I presented it in a way that it left my whole case presented incompletely. While at the end of the class my research was viewed by the reader as supporting evidence and not a tangent in my paper that didn’t make any sense. When I was doing research for my paper at the end of the semester I could include relevant research that acted as support and enhanced my paper for the reader to then agree or disagree with my thesis.

Some things I am worried about in ERH 102 is not being able to fully complete my ideas again in my writing. I got rather comfortable in 101 this last semester with how easy it came at the end of the year to sit down and write a paper that had in it body paragraphs that included the last few sentences that summed up fully what I intended to say. But the material we will cover in ERH 102 will differ from ERH 101 so it will take some time adjusting to the new structure.

Also, being able to include research made my arguments stronger this last semester but I think that will improve in EHR 102. It said in the syllabus that we will work on preforming and including research in our papers while still using rhetorical analysis which will help keep finding relevant research applicable.

In ERH 101 I learned how to execute many new and different skills while improving my writing. I hope to carry some of that into ERH 102 but like everything new in life, one may have worries. There are still things I can improve in my writing and I hope to do that while learning about new topics this semester.