To begin this project, we had read this play “The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail,” this play introduced us to civil disobedience. Then we read the book “Justice” by Michael Sandel. We learned about philosophies and the philosophers that created them. We took a week, sitting in table groups of five to six, and worked together to finish figuring out each philosophies stand-point on certain dilemmas and questions. There were four moral dilemmas that we learned about; deontology, libertarians, utilitarianism, and John Rawls Justices as Fairness. Deontology, created by Immanuel Kant, is when human life is valued above anything else, and that if anything happens, it was done for the morally right reasons. Libertarians believe that if there wasn’t any government influence, everyone would have stronger individual rights. Utilitarianism is supported by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mills, it focused on the “greater good” but they had two different ideas. Bentham was more in favor of giving up individual rights for more security for the whole. Mills had argued that individual liberty would benefit everyone in the long-run. To connect all these philosophies and stand-points, we connected it with both what was happening in Ferguson and the history book editing in Texas. One of the final activities that we did was to find logos, pathos and ethos in different advertisements and writings. For the final project that we were going to exhibit, we needed to find a global issue and write an Op-Ed article with the idea of equality, security and liberty. We also needed to create an art piece that represented our perspective on the global issue that also had two of the rhetoric appeals.
After learning about rhetoric, it really made me take a different look at how advertisements are created and just how many politicians use it for themselves. With the elections coming up, there are political campaigns that are trying to make the opponents sound bad and make themselves sound like the right choice. This isn’t just with politicians, but also major corporations use it to make the audience connect with what they are trying to sell. One of the most challenging things for me at the exhibition was trying to get people to understand where my perspective was coming from and the positive side of my topic. But I had started to practice more and more with the people who were coming up and talking to me about my subject. So I started to persuade people more after I had been able to get my whole speech down slightly better.
For my Op-Ed article, one of my strongest points from the rubric was my organization and evidence use. For my first rough draft, Ashley had informed me that I need to get my paragraphs more organized with a single topic and thesis. So then, when I was editing my paper, I planned out what I was going to say in each paragraph. So then all my paragraphs, as I believe, has their own topic that was covered. Then, in my paragraphs, I used a lot of evidence from sources that were trustworthy websites. I used some magazine articles, like Forbes and National Geographic and also many organizations. I also quoted everything that I used by citing in my bibliography and added the authors name at the end of the quotations. What my project was weakest on was having my moral and political content completed. One of the sections that were needed to get a whole grade was a solution or ideas to somehow solve this political issue. My issue that I had chosen was to legalize organ selling, so there wasn’t really anything to resolve. Unless legalizing organ selling is the way to solve the problem of the growing organ transplant list.
If I had another week for this project, I would have had a more creative art piece. I had placed my art piece last on the list for the Op-Ed. I also didn’t get myself any critique on my idea and physical art piece, so I didn’t know if I should have taken anything out or emphasized it more. I really wasn’t happy with my art piece. I wasn’t quite sure what I should have done to get my perspective-point across. I was really proud of my Op-Ed because I had used organization to make sure everything made sense. I think that I would have switched over to Photoshop to have a cleaner finish. Then I would have put it on a more solid piece of black poster board or paper so that it wasn’t flimsy. But I had gotten an art piece out for the exhibition, so that it something to be proud of.
After learning about rhetoric, it really made me take a different look at how advertisements are created and just how many politicians use it for themselves. With the elections coming up, there are political campaigns that are trying to make the opponents sound bad and make themselves sound like the right choice. This isn’t just with politicians, but also major corporations use it to make the audience connect with what they are trying to sell. One of the most challenging things for me at the exhibition was trying to get people to understand where my perspective was coming from and the positive side of my topic. But I had started to practice more and more with the people who were coming up and talking to me about my subject. So I started to persuade people more after I had been able to get my whole speech down slightly better.
For my Op-Ed article, one of my strongest points from the rubric was my organization and evidence use. For my first rough draft, Ashley had informed me that I need to get my paragraphs more organized with a single topic and thesis. So then, when I was editing my paper, I planned out what I was going to say in each paragraph. So then all my paragraphs, as I believe, has their own topic that was covered. Then, in my paragraphs, I used a lot of evidence from sources that were trustworthy websites. I used some magazine articles, like Forbes and National Geographic and also many organizations. I also quoted everything that I used by citing in my bibliography and added the authors name at the end of the quotations. What my project was weakest on was having my moral and political content completed. One of the sections that were needed to get a whole grade was a solution or ideas to somehow solve this political issue. My issue that I had chosen was to legalize organ selling, so there wasn’t really anything to resolve. Unless legalizing organ selling is the way to solve the problem of the growing organ transplant list.
If I had another week for this project, I would have had a more creative art piece. I had placed my art piece last on the list for the Op-Ed. I also didn’t get myself any critique on my idea and physical art piece, so I didn’t know if I should have taken anything out or emphasized it more. I really wasn’t happy with my art piece. I wasn’t quite sure what I should have done to get my perspective-point across. I was really proud of my Op-Ed because I had used organization to make sure everything made sense. I think that I would have switched over to Photoshop to have a cleaner finish. Then I would have put it on a more solid piece of black poster board or paper so that it wasn’t flimsy. But I had gotten an art piece out for the exhibition, so that it something to be proud of.