If I Taught This Class

This class was a lot different than I was expecting.  If I taught it, I would do some things different, but all in all, I enjoyed the class.  I really liked how the class was structured overall.  We started out very small, just figuring out some problems in our community, and we ended up writing a research paper aimed at proposing a solution to one of those problems that we originally came up with.  I really liked how the assignments, for the most part, were aimed at getting us to explore different rhetorical ideas, and building on those ideas up to the final paper.  The most helpful assignments were the presentation and Assignment 2.1, where we had to argue both sides of our argument.  The presentation helped with the organization of my arguments.  I was able to group arguments and find sources that pertained to each group.  Assignment 2.1 was helpful because it is easy to forget that there are two sides to an argument, and that if you don’t address the other viewpoints, you won’t be very convincing in your argument.  It is easy to list all of the reasons why you think you are right.  It is much harder to formulate arguments for why someone else is wrong.  The biggest thing that I would change about the class is the structure of the blog.  I feel like part of the reason that there are so many people posting on the blog so late is that there was a lot of ambiguity as to what we should write about.  We didn’t know what to write about, so we just didn’t write.  If the blog was given more direction, or specific prompts for some of the posts, I think that we would be much more compelled to do the posts.  In addition, I think that this would allow for much more discussion in the comments. All in all, I’m glad that I took this class, and I think I am a better writer for it.