Coming to an End...

As I looked at the previous posts I had done throughout my semester; I noticed that I had improved on analyzing a certain subject. Even though I still continue to struggle with sometime making a valid rhetoric analysis. Still, I believe that these exercises I learned how just not to talk about what was going on in the photograph, song, or short video clip. Just by being able to write about what we see and what that means has helped me during the writing process of my paper. Now, I am able to explain how give a clearer explanation in my writing. Since I am exercising my writing skills about 3-4 times a week. I really liked the new addition of the blog compared to last semester because it allows me to look at an image in the world and analyze it. I liked how we did not have any real direction in the blog, but we were just told to come up with a deeper meaning then just describing it. Like what is the purpose of this building and how that affects society.
Overall I truly enjoyed this class; I liked how that I started to improve on my writing. This is the first time that I felt that I got good critisim on my writing and I'm learning how to change that. I believe that the writing assignments, reading assignments, and papers were sometimes better it was only for my own good. Thanks for making writing as fun as possible with the paper topics. THANKS AGAIN JON!

- Sophia Damtew

Final Post

The blog assignment is perhaps one of the most fun and out of the box assignments i have ever had in any of my writing classes. This I say with all truthfullness. many aspects of these little assignments made it enjoyable for me. for instance serching through the internet to find one interesting image gave me the opertunity to see plenty of images that either i found hilarious at the time or that really shocked and made a deep inpact upon me. an example of this would be the street sign blog that i posted which was related to imigration which was kind of funny I admit but wrong in so many ways. another aspect of the blog assignment I enjoyed was actually writing my opinion on what I thought it ment and how I thought it was relevent. this allowed me to exprece myself and think critically about things i normally would just ignore. the final aspect that really made the blogs worth while was reading what other people had found. Actually i think this was my favorite part of the entire class.

-Fernand

Semester Blog

Doing a blog every week was tough for me. I like the idea of the concept that everyone can read everyones, and somewhat get to know eachothers personality a little bit. The part of this assignment that I didn't like was finding interesting images with rhetoric. I think it would be better if there was some type of prompt. But not a prompt from a reading. Maybe just a prompt that says go here and look at this or go to this website and give us your thoughts. It was tough for me to find interesting images because the only camera I have on campus is a disposable camera...not great for posting online. I often found myself just looking for images online instead of getting out there on campus and looking. I think that the internet makes it too easy compared to finding our own images. I really did like posting on a blog, but I would like to post about a different subject. Overall I think the blog post should be kept in this course.

Isaiah

Final Blog

I have kind of mixed feelings about the blog assignments. I feel like they were good in the fact that it was a different kind of writing, more informal and you didn't have to worry about having to do structured writing which is big for me because I hate to do that. I think it helped me quite a bit in actually analyzing pictures, text, or anything you see visually and actually dig a little deeper and really find new ways to look at things. I think it somewhat carried over into the classroom setting and into our papers. On the other hand it was kind of hard for me at first to find good visual text and have something to write about. Traditionally it has been hard for me to be good at analyzing anything that isn't really straight forward. Sometimes I found it hard to come up with very much to say about certain visual text and spend alot of time trying surfing the net or walking around to find something worth writing about. However, I do feel that this was a good experience for me and helped me become a better writer.

-Will

Blogger Reflection

When we first started to do the blogs on Blogger, I was lost and didn't what to do and as a result, I waited until someone posted something up and look what they had done then find similar things. I realized it does help me in terms of discovering the meaning or the messages hidden inside the picture or message itself. However, although I can try to see or understand the deeper message inside, finding a way to express it and write it on Blogger is a whole different story. Sometimes I know what the images or pictures are trying to say but I just can't seem to find the right word to describe it. But overall, it is fun and interesting seeing what people put up but I just don't feel that Blogger is effective enough. It does get you to think critically and by having us put up a weekly post helps us to think of it critically and also how to put it down on paper. However, I just find it tedious and never seem to look forward to it. Maybe that is because I have to go out and find the actual blogs myself.
Thinh

Better Writer

Have the blogs affected my ability to interpret the visual materials? Yes definitely. I believe that by doing small blogs i improved my skill of research and explication. One of the reasons for that is the fact that blogs forced me to look at objects from a critical perspective. I remember doing this one blog where i was looking on an image of 8 year old kid with machine gun and a teddy bear backpack. I was fascinated with the external conflict between those two items. I found that there is more to visual art than meets the eye. But what i regret and contemplate oftentimes as foolish is an extent to which we had to look into details of things and reconstruct them instead of accepting them for what they are.
Did blogs made me a better writer? I don't know. There is more to being a writer than the ability to write, in my own personal view. I know though that blogs gave me practice necessary in order to achieve that destination.
What i like above all is probably the process of publishing a blog. Starting from scratch and building a cohesive argument, providing visual and textual support. I look back and see the evolution of my writing. Then i can look on what i have improved on, and what i have to strengthen. And overall it was a fun easy experienced that did not require me to sweat my ass of with all the other classless on the back of m mind :)
Valera Chekmazov

"Bling"

by: Jackie G.


In our society there are quite a few unwed mothers/parents out there. Even though this is as common as a leaf falling from a tree now a days people still seem to be completely amazed by it. I actually found this image on another bloggers page ( . this is the website in case you want to check it out yourself), and this person seemed to be completely disgusted as am I, from the billboards context. This is what the other blogger had to say "I ran across this billboard during a recent trip to north-central Iowa. I don’t think there are words that can describe how I feel about its message or its design, so I present it to you as a “moment of Zen” if you will." I'm just shocked to know that this is not a phony billboard and that they actually send these types of messages out to people. This image makes pregnancy seem like a horrible thing that a woman should be ashamed to be. NO ONE should be able to decide for a man/woman when the right or wrong time to have sex is. The government especially should not be able to make those or even advertise those types of decisions.