Throughout high school, writing was all about the five-paragraph essay, having the correct number of sources, and making sure the word count was close enough. I disliked writing class, and despised my teacher because my papers were never good enough, or were lacking a few small details. Back then writing was all about finishing an assignment that was taken from a rubric.

When we first arrived in class, we began talking about the idea of a rhetorical situation, or situation that causes a person to want to prove a point about something. When in high school, I never thought that the rubrics I was given were probably meant for me to find a situation that would make me want to write and argue. The idea that our assignments were not just given because they had to be, but that we were actually supposed to get us to dig deeper and make connections that we had previously missed or never made.

The idea of audience was not heavily introduced in high school, making it hard to target ones piece of writing. In high school, I always just assumed that we were writing for the teacher because they handed out the grades. After looking at the subjects of rhetorical situation and audience, I now realize the extreme importance of tailoring a piece of writing to the specific audience. In regard to rhetorical situation, and changing the audience’s views on a certain subject, the matter becomes even more important.

Writing with a purpose seems to be the bigger point of the class, and realizing the power that writing has. In MLK’s letter, he wrote with a greater good in mind, of freeing his people from segregation, and implementing the values that our government had promised on the creation of our country. MLK knew exactly what needed to be said, and the audience that it needed to appeal to; to this day I am one-hundred percent positive that MLK’s letter has inspired many people to do the right thing.

When I used to think of genre, I would think about the classification of movies and books into action, comedy, or thriller, but did not truly see the real purpose. Now I see that certain characteristics of a piece of writing must be incorporated to make it fit into the desired genre. Genre and audience are connected and must both be expressed through the writing.

Before this class, I had never even heard of ethos, pathos, and logos. These three subjects make a piece of writing understandable and relatable to the audience. When establishing ethos, and author needs to get through to the writer, through the presentation of an ethical argument that interests the reader. Once the reader understands the argument, they can be roped in further through the use to pathos to appeal to the reader’s emotional side. Once the reader is roped into the argument, the author can present facts to back up what they have said. I believe that ethos, pathos, and logos are the key to a well-rounded, understandable and relatable argument.

Media is the final piece of this class, and we haven’t truly talked about it. My senior year of high school, I only had writing class second semester, and didn’t think I had written anything throughout the first two quarters. Looking back I do believe that I posted stuff on Facebook, or had been texting my friends. Writing is all around us, and we use it more than we think. I had never blogged before coming to this class, and didn’t really think of it as a way to write academically. Throughout this class we have used the Internet as a means to share our side of an argument, and to view and comment on other peoples arguments. We have also written a newspaper article and a magazine article, which help writers better understand the audience and genre aspects of writing.

The three things I have truly learned this quarter thus far consist of rhetorical situation, genre, and audience, and they have been connected through writing in different forms and genres.