English 124 Final Project

[NewJeans - NewJeans] Intro Danielle: Good morning my fellow students and my fellow high achievers! Or good afternoon or evening whenever you decide to tune in. I’d like to give you a warm welcome to the first episode of Student Survival 101, where I, Danielle, your host, give you all the tips and tricks you need to survive high school. If you feel overwhelmed or stressed out, do not even fret because you’ve come to the right place! My goal is to help you survive even the toughest of classes here at HSHMC. But first, a little bit about me. Since this is the first time we’re meeting, I want you all to know that you can trust my advice. Your success comes first! If you didn’t catch my name earlier, I’m Danielle! My favorite color is pink, I love butterflies and bunnies, and I am a fan of the K-pop group, NewJeans. Now with introductions out of the way, let me introduce to you the topic of today. As HSHMC students, we all know that our school is dual enrollment. That means we take college classes in addition to our normal high school classes. We have a wide variety of classes here, including HEDs or our health course, math, history, and English. Now, personally, I am an English girlie. I absolutely love writing and reading. I journal often and I am on my third journal. It literally pains me that a lot of the people I talk to don’t like English. They always say it’s boring or too hard. But that’s why I’m here today. I’ll be discussing HSHMC’s college English program. However, I’ll mostly be talking about the English 124 course. If you don’t like English, I hope that I can change your mind. But if you do like writing, I hope to foster that love even more. If this is your first time being introduced to English 124 but you feel interested in the college English world, then don’t worry. Today I’ll be introducing you to English 124, preparing you for assignments such as a rhetorical analysis, and providing you tips on how to be successful in this class. [NewJeans - NewJeans] Section I Danielle: Although most people listening will have already taken English 120 or are currently taking it, that’s great! It’s good to have experience. To those still in it, I hope it’s going well for you. I’ll be getting my information from the class syllabus so I can provide you with the most accurate description of the course. So, English 124 is also known as advanced composition. According to the syllabus, the purpose of 124 is to develop critical thinking, reading, and writing skills. It’s a more focused course, whereas English 120 focuses on English in general. English 124 is more about the analysis. When you take this course, you’ll be analyzing articles, books, journal entries, and transcripts of speeches and videos. However, English 120 and 124 are actually quite similar when it comes to overall class structure. Both classes are mostly asynchronous, and there are assignments and modules posted weekly. It’s been over a year since I took English 120, but if I had to assume, and this goes for you guys as well, assume the late work policy is the same. You guys will also still have to write in MLA format. Also according to the syllabus are the intended goals of this class. After taking this course, students will be able to analyze arguments and determine their effectiveness, construct their own arguments to support their claims and improve their writing so that it becomes clear and mostly error-free. There’s more, but that’s the general idea and expected outcomes. Another important thing to note is that academic dishonesty is not taken lightly. There is no tolerance for cheating or plagiarism. So don’t cheat you guys. If you don’t get the grade you want on an essay, revisions are available for one essay. I know, I know. After hearing all of that syllabus talk, this course might seem overwhelming at first. I was super anxious before taking English 120 in the past, and I was also super anxious about signing up for 124 back in January. Trust me, I know how it feels. So, to better prepare you for English 124, let’s discuss assignments. As I said earlier, English 124 is more focused on analysis, so many of your assignments will be focused on looking for certain aspects of a text. But, prepare for more. You’ll also be doing annotations, peer reviews, making a literature review, constructing multiple rhetorical precis, making your own game plans and outlines to ensure you stay afloat, and participating in many discussion boards. Besides that, you have your essays. No matter which writing project you’re working on, you’ll be giving an analysis. That brings me to my next topic. Everybody, I’d like for you to give a warm welcome to your best English 124 friend: the rhetorical analysis! [NewJeans - NewJeans] Section II Danielle: So, what is a rhetorical analysis? A rhetorical analysis is an essay that focuses on the effectiveness of a text. There are a lot of things you need to consider when writing one. First, you need to know the rhetorical appeals and strategies, and those are very different. Rhetorical appeals include ethos, which is all about credibility and trustworthiness, then you have logos, which focuses on logic, and finally, pathos, where pathos is an appeal to your emotions. Strategies are what writers use to satisfy those appeals. For example, ethos is credibility. A writer may mention their academic background in their writing. This helps us, the audience, be more willing to trust that writer’s work. Another example is using data to appeal to logos. Logos is logic, and facts are logic. You can’t argue with a statistic. Finally, you can appeal to pathos by using personal anecdotes. You’re trying to persuade your audience by trying to relate to them. Or, you can probably just make them angry. That works too. Those are just some examples, but they do work! After knowing the appeals and strategies, you’ll have to identify a writer’s audience. An audience is especially important because some topics won’t work well to sway certain people. For example, I’m a teenager, so I have no business or interest in reading about how to buy a home or how to fall in love quickly. I’m more inclined to read about how to keep my grades up or which places are the best for hanging out with friends. You need to have an intended audience, and so does the text you are analyzing. Knowing who it’s for makes its message even more urgent. Lastly, you’ll have to know about logical fallacies. Logical fallacies are the opposite of appeals and strategies. They are flaws in logic if that wasn’t obvious enough. Some include circulatory reasoning, where you repeat the argument instead of supporting it with an appeal and strategy, there’s also ad hominem, where you insult the opposing side’s arguments, and there’s also the either-or fallacy, where an argument declares only two solutions or outcomes to an issue. From one writer to another, avoid these as best as you can. They hurt your writing! After taking all of that into consideration, you’re ready to analyze someone else’s text. You’ll be looking for what I just discussed. What appeals are they using? What strategies do they use to reach those appeals? Who’s the writer’s intended audience? Is the writer effective in persuading their audience of what they think? Are there any logical fallacies in their writing? Now that I’ve helped you look for what you need in a rhetorical analysis, let’s starting looking into what you can do to be survive English 124! [NewJeans - NewJeans] Section III Danielle: So, for this section, I’ve got a handful of advice to give. Succeeding in this class has a lot to do with you. My first piece of advice for you all is to turn your work in on time! Modules are posted every Monday, and you have enough time to complete your work. You can even finish all your assignments on Monday and be free for the week! This helps you stay caught up and lowers your risk of losing points due to late work. My second piece of advice is to read the directions of the modules carefully. Everything you need will be in each module or assignment description. If you’re missing something in a worksheet, you may get docked points as well. Make sure to give detailed answers in whatever assignment you do! My third piece of advice, which I’m hoping is standard, don’t cheat. I actually think this should have been my first piece of advice. But yeah, don’t cheat. I wish I didn’t need to add this in my advice, but if you get caught cheating you’ll be punished for it. Those punishments are no joke. Please take English 124 with honesty in mind. It’s more rewarding that way and you really do get to improve as a writer. People cheat when they’re afraid of failing or when they’re lazy. But, I’d say there’s a way to counteract both of those. My fourth piece of advice is to ask for feedback. Asking for feedback from peers and my teachers multiple times helped me be more comfortable with my writing. I know you can’t ask for feedback all the time, but when you can, do it. I asked for help with my essays all the time and in the process, I got really good scores on my essays and felt like I improved my writing skills. Moving on, my fifth and sixth pieces of advise are more related to a person’s writing process. When it comes to writing an essay, I advise you to create an outline. This makes your essays more organized. Your writing flows more smoothly and it’ll be easy for your audience to follow. Essay outlines are included as a regular assignment in English 124, so take advantage of them. I believe that creating those outlines saved me from struggling a lot. I think they’ll do the same for you. For my outline, I usually added bullet points, a draft of my thesis, and evidence I was planning on using in my body paragraphs. I suggest doing that too! However, the assignment description will also recommend what to add. Either that or it’ll be a requirement. Outlines and drafts don’t need to be perfect, so don’t stress yourself out by trying to forge the perfect piece of text. There will be always time to change it. That is, if it’s before the deadline! My last piece of advice is probably my favorite. I always tell my friends for any writing assignment they do to write like how they talk. You know how teachers always go like “I can tell when this isn’t your writing?” Well, that’s what I mean. Talking to yourself when writing your essay makes the writing yours. It’s not your best friend’s or your teacher’s, or your dog’s. That’s your voice in those words. You’ll be submitting original work, which is the best way to avoid plagiarism and be rewarded for your achievements. Celebrate yourself! Now, that’s all the advice I have for you all today. I hope that after listening to my podcast, you’ve learned a lot more about English 124 and how to survive in the class. I hope for those who decide to take this course don’t withdraw from it and do their absolute best. Of course, my advice is what worked well for me, and it may not work the same for you. However, shortly after taking the class, you’ll find your own groove. Who knows? You may be the next person to give advice to the next group of students planning to take I24. [NewJeans - NewJeans] Outro Danielle: Thank you all again for joining me on the first episode of Student Survival 101. I hope you enjoyed it and learned something new. For more great information, check out my classmate’s other podcasts, presentations, and guidebooks. Bye!