Course Journals

Reflection

A piece of writing known as “Journal Writing” is a document in which an individual presents his or her thoughts or reflections about a specific topic. In my English Writing Seminar class, I was required to utilized three different documents and articles for the development of three respective journal entries. The first journal I had to write was based on an article ” Sexist Language: Terministic Screens and Transcendence.”, by Colleen M. Keough. After reading this article, I was able to understand how we, as human beings, deflect or transform reality to shape our lives the way we want to. We create terministic screens either consciously or unconsciously as we perceive the world and share our perceptions. This is because our perspectives of the world, our personal background, and our culture and values, play a critical role on how we see and interpret things around us. The second journal I did was based on a document named “The Rhetoric of Hitler’s Battle” by Kenneth Burke. In this document, Burke’s presents an analysis of Hitler’s Mein Kampf. This document truly caught my attention in one section where it talked about how Hitler deflected the attention of the public to rise a new political idea, his idea about communism and that the Jews were the cause for many problems to the society. He attacked the Jews democracy and blamed them for the economic collapse at that time. His power to center the blame around race and religion, which is a very sensitive and vulnerable topic on society, truly gave him the power he was looking for (Burke, 1939). In addition, the third journal entry I wrote was based on a document “Civil Disobedience” by Henry David Thoreau. After reading this document I was able to understand how sometimes governments take control of our lives and deprive us of our rights to enjoy life and to be who we are. Instead, people become a shadow of their bodies. Thoreau utilizes the example of the soldiers marching all very organized and synchronized on their way to battleground. Then he states people’s unawareness of the business they are enrolled into. They are no longer men, instead they are like movable machines at the service of an unethical individual (Thoreau 1849).

In the creation of this journal entries I was able to successfully meet one of the course learning outcomes which is to understand the nature of public discourse or debate as determined by purpose, audience, and context. I consider, that I was able to gain knowledge by reading about such important topics and truly appreciate their value and the different styles and format of writing documents. Also, another course objective that I was able to achieve was to understand how the knowledge, skills, and values learned in general education are interwoven and interrelated, and how they can contribute to the process of citizen leadership. This is because after reading the documents I had to find a way to organize my thoughts and conclusions about such matter and be able to express them in a cohesive and concise piece of writing. This assignment was a great way for me to develop an opinion towards a topic and to be able to present my thoughts in writing. I will be able to translate this assignment to other activities in my life in terms of for example analyzing something simple as a text or email and further presenting my ideas or providing a response.