Mariah Strock's Citizenship Writing ePortfolio

All of the course learning outcomes were fulfilled during the common good project, including “engage in the process of citizen leadership by investigating multiple perspectives on important public issues,” “understand the nature of public discourse/debate as determined by purpose audience, and context,” “choose appropriate formats in writing for a variety of purposes,” “analyze the effectiveness of their own texts and processes for specific rhetorical situations,” and “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.” I was able to take the lead in developing the brochure for my group’s project. I enjoyed being able to write a brochure by utilizing the rhetorical tools we learned in class. I found it easier to write a document knowing that the purpose of the artifact was to persuade my audience and because I understood rhetorical tools that could be used to help me persuade the audience. I liked being able to use language and images that would help to persuade my audience to agree with my definition of date rape. I also played a significant role in writing the rationale document for our project. This helped me to consider all the tools we had covered in class and to attempt to incorporate as many of the tools as possible in the brochure in a short, six-panel brochure. I had to choose my language and content carefully to be able to fit as much as possible in a small space. I had to get my point across quickly and used subtitles, font size, and color to help emphasize certain points that I wanted to stand out because of their persuasive effects. I applied logos, pathos, ethos, and Kairos when developing the brochure content. I also reviewed the website content and was able to make suggestions regarding other tools to use to better persuade our audience. We used the rhetorical tool of virtue in our materials topersuade the audience that we share the same values as the audience does. The entirety of the project focuses on the audience belief that assault is bad and needs to be fixed. Empathy was another tool that was applied. We attempted to persuade the audience to empathize with victims and their families. For example, we used website content to evoke an experience for the audience by providing vivid descriptions of what it feels like to be a survivor of assault, with personal testaments and the use of images. Epiphany was also used to persuade the audience that while many people, particularly in their age group, initially have an impression of physical assault as violence that causes significant physical harm to victims, many people will change their mind, like the authors have, about what physical assault is after learning more about the issue and how it impacts lives. I really enjoyed working on this project as part of a team and learned a lot about the use of rhetoric as a result.

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