Expansion of mind 

            Being a student of such a class designed to challenge the minds of those who decide to go through the phases presented in the class, allowed me and many others within the classroom to improve and develop the ideologies that we once had/have. The “before and after” transformation from the way I express myself in my writing to deciding the type of rhetorical appeal I have decided to use to connect with the audience, has differed tremendous throughout these phases. Coming into this class, I had expectation of perhaps the class being a standard English class similar to one of a high school. The black and white expectations that were given, the books that were passed out to the class to read the chapters from such to such, and then make either an informative, persuasive, or argumentative essay. I didn’t think at all that my perceptive would be challenged and that the way I thought of language would change. 

            The first phase of the classroom being the “Language and literacy” phase allowed for me to explore how language has a tremendous effect on an individual and how they express themselves. Many of the students that are in my class are mainly from other countries, this meant that most of our parents are immigrants. This is when I explored how language for immigrant households and communication between first generation children affected their day-to-day life. Before I thought that language was just used in order to understand each other and function as a society but it is much deeper than that. In my particular situation, being raised by Ecuadorian parents, it was difficult trying to retain my Spanish in an English dominate Country. Especially, since I was living in an area that was more concentrated with African Americans, I learned certain “lingos” that I would use when I spoke to my friends. When I came back home, it was back to Spanish where I had some difficulty trying to pronounce certain words. The basis of this was that there was multiple cultures that I had to deal with and changing languages back and forth was sometimes a struggle but it gave me the opportunity to become friends with people around the world and indulge in my own culture as well. 

“Throughout the years, learning English and being in mostly environments that people spoke English, my Spanish was fading away. To further elaborate, I used to talk very fluent Spanish as a young child but when confronted with an audience that was mostly English speaking, it was hard to practice my own native language outside of my household.”

            The second phase of the classroom was the “Rhetorical Analysis” phase which allowed me to explore the different types of rhetorical devices I could use to appeal to my audience. Throughout this phase, I had the opportunity to identify different appeal that authors used in their own writing, this implement the basis for me to understand how and when to have the appropriate appeal in my own writing. This appeal being Logos, Pathos, or Ethos, which was the main appeals I used throughout my writing. Using a personal anecdote was a good tool as well and the learning that took place was the diversity with the use of these tools. 

            “The learning outcome that I gain from this phase of the class was how to be able to use and recognize different rhetorical terms and strategies being used in a writing.” 

            The third phase being a “Research Essay” phase which I made my own topic of discussion. The class had to make an informative essay with their own claim on their topic. The topic I chose was about gender roles in society. To be more specific the development and comparison between traditional gender roles and modern gender roles. The learning experience that I received during this phase was how to find scholarly article and utilize them to either provide supporting evidence to your claim, or to provide a counter argument to challenge your claim. This is something that before I would have not know how to do but with the help of this exercise I was able to do both in my writing. 

            “This phase’s assignment helped me learn how to cite my sources and practice systematic application of citation conventions. I want the reader to be open to the discussion of gender roles and how they have changed and remained the same in different aspects. These observations were all made with the account of many factors that are involved with gender roles. These factors such as race, religion, culture, and societies were taken into account when making my claim. I encourage for people to do their own research on this topic to get a better grasp of this topic because there is much more to it than only the factors I listed.”