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Reflection Statement

My favorite project of the semester would have to be the literacy narrative essay. This was my favorite assignment because I think it was pretty cool to sit back and reflect on all of the things that shaped me into the writer that I am today. And the podcast assignment is my second favorite project of the semester. It took me outside of my comfort zone which I found to be pretty dope and it was the coolest thing I've ever had to do for a grade in any writing class, ever. But this semester wasn't all peaches and cream. I did have some difficulties when it came to assignments like the rhetorical analysis because I wasn't sure exactly how to talk about something and not summarize it. But that is when my instructor introduced to ethos, logos, pathos, and Kairos which made the assignment so much easier for me because that taught me the difference between analyzing something and telling a recap of everything that I heard or saw. My instructor always taught both myself and the entire class that it is okay not to think of ourselves as a writer because ultimately, we still are. A person writes every day. We write emails to professors, tweets, Facebook statuses, etc. And that was one of the points I made in my literacy narrative essay was that we are all readers and writers in our own ways. I walked into this semester terrified thinking that this writing class would be strict and I also thought that we would have to write a paper every week and submit them for a grade but I was totally wrong. Writing 120 was very fun and it helped me to regain my likeness for reading and writing. Even the textbook for this class wasn't like the average textbook. The textbook for this class was written like a textbook so all semester long I was learning all these great things without feeling like I was doing much work at all. It made learning the material for this course simple, fun, and super easy. Overall this course is definitely one I would recommend to any incoming freshman. Like I've mentioned so many times before during this reflection this course was very refreshing and fun. Not like the average writing course and isn't work heavy which is one of the things I like most. In any of my future writing classes I'll be sure to always remember the things that I've been taught during this semester. Such as how to write an effective rhetorical analysis, and to not stress so much on the reading and writing aspect of an assignment because that'll always come naturally.  

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“About Me”

Hello. My name is Kyannah. I am 18 years old and currently a freshman at Eastern Michigan University. I love dogs sometimes more than people and enjoy listening to music. Wings are my favorite food to eat. People often tell me that I have a "old soul." I'm a biology major and chemistry minor. I enjoy watching tv with the sound off and old western movies. Erykah Badu is my favorite singer, ever. And some day when I get married John Legend will sing at my wedding! Flowers are my favorite and they make me happy. And this concludes my summary about me.  

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Project No. 1

Literacy and Me

I learned to read during the summer of 2002. I was 3 years old and I remember sitting in the kitchen listening to an audio tape and reading along to the book in front of me while all the other children on the block were outside playing. My mother and father worked a lot so my grandparents kept an eye on myself and my twin sister, Ayannah while they were working. We didn’t go to pre-school but with grandparents like mine, who needed it? My grandfather ordered the entire set of Hooked on Phonics and every day he worked with us. He taught us how to read, how to sound out words, and chunk them into smaller words that we were more familiar with. We weren’t allowed to be “bored,” because my grandfather was quick to try and shove a book down our throats.

I can’t remember the name of the first book I ever read but I remember If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff having a major impact on my childhood. I found the book to be hilarious. How could one little mouse be so much trouble, I thought. This opened the floodgates for me to begin reading for fun. By the time I had reached the third grade my parents couldn’t stop me from reading. I was in love with the Junie B. Jones series by this time and whenever the Scholastic Book fair came to my school I was begging my parents for money to buy a new book, or bookmark. My older brother and sister teased me and often called me a nerd. I didn’t care. My mom always told them to stop and to “leave her baby alone,” she saw

my love for reading and she encouraged me to read more. I grew tired of always having to defend my fondness for reading to my siblings and peers though. And despite my mom’s support I began to shy away from reading. By the time I had reached middle-school I refused to go on being known as the girl who likes books, it was my time to reinvent myself. I was in search for something new to replace my love for books.

When I got into middle-school I quickly realized that social media was that new thing I was looking for. Facebook was huge then and I just had to have one. My parents didn’t approve but I made an account anyway. It didn’t take long before I made the connection that Facebook was nothing but reading and a little writing. I would make a status saying what I was doing; eating, watching on television, etc. It was then I started to think of myself as a writer. Statuses were my pen and my paper, and whenever I made a “post,” my work/writing was published if you will and my Facebook friends were my audience/readers.

Soon Facebook wasn’t as popular. And as I was entering into high school we kids gravitated toward a new social media site by the name of Twitter. Twitter introduced me to my first meme. A meme is “an image or video that is spread widely on the internet, often altered by internet users for humorous effect,” according to collinsdictionary.com. Up until I joined Twitter I always thought that I was alone when I would see a picture and would think of something funny in my head. But apparently that was perfectly normal and an important skill to have called visual literacy. According to Wikipedia visual literacy is “the ability to interpret, negotiate, and make meaning from information presented in the form of an image, extending the meaning of literacy, which commonly signifies interpretation of a written or printed text”.

Also in high school often times when I was assigned a book to read I would use visual literacy to help me get through it. My sophomore year my class had to read The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and it was really difficult for me to read at first because of how old it was. The book was written back in 1925 and the way the characters talked then was much different then how we speak now. But fortunately I had seen the movie with Leonardo DiCaprio so for the chapters I found the reading to be very difficult I would refer to the movie and picture Leonardo and Tobey Maguire as Gatsby and Nick. This helped me tremendously. And I still till this day refer to my prior knowledge when reading a book. I will assign my favorite actors to be the characters in a book, watch the adaptations of the movies, and use my own personal experiences. It helps me to picture the characters in the book and makes it easier for me to read because I have a mini movie playing in my head as I read.

Now that I’m in college reading is a little different. Visual literacy is more difficult. Instead of actual books like The Great Gatsby my reading material comes from text books filled with tons of words with little to no pictures, and PowerPoints. Since I’m a visual learner PowerPoints are fine for me to read because I can actually see what I am being taught but as for text books I’ve learned that active reading works best for me. Active Reading consists of me creating my own questions before reading, skimming the chapter, and taking notes. This wasn’t always something I’ve done, though. It’s something I picked up on while reading for one of my classes here.

In college a lot of my professors teach by lecturing for hours making it very difficult for me to retain the information. So in classes like this I have to teach myself the information because it is not something that I can see, my brain doesn’t get it. During classes I take notes of  

what I can retain, while, also recording the lecture. When I am alone I listen to the audio taping on my phone and take more notes. And then I re-read over the notes to look for key things/words and I think of something in my past/personal experience that will help me to remember them.

My journey to literacy isn’t perfect. Literacy isn’t something that I was born with but something that I had to work on and am still mastering. It is a part of everything I do. Literacy is me making a post, or tweet on social media, emailing a professor, reading a textbook for class, there is no escaping it. For me literacy is being able to read a text and make it your own. Being able to read anything and regardless of its difficulty and understand it. It’s more than just being able to read and write. It’s a knowledge that we all have obtained over a lifetime of learning from different sources. And in conclusion this is what literacy is to me and why it is important.

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Project No. 2

Project No. 2 Essay

My writing process for this podcast assignment was very different from any other writing I’ve done. I had to revert back to things that I learned back in elementary school and I had to do a brainstorm page. I wasn’t the old-school bubble graph. Instead I did a table chart and it was very effective when it came to writing my script and it helped me to know where to put what. I stole the idea from a picture/chart that I saw on Google when I searched “podcast script.” I started my podcast script a little late. Three hours before class to be exact. I remember being in the library confused on what to put on my paper. There is no correct way to write a podcast script meaning that they were no rules and that made me a bit uneasy and made writing difficult.

As mentioned before I use the method of brainstorming to write my podcast script and it helped me to decide where I would put each narrative in my script. Deciding what my podcast would be about wasn’t difficult, though. I had already written a paper/essay on my own personal literacy narrative so transforming that into a podcast was easy. I didn’t have to be so formal and this was a chance to just talk to the people who would potentially be my listeners and vibe out. My podcast I think has a very organic feel to it because of this I feel.

Writing this script was definitely more challenging than I expected. I’m not a very creative person so when given an assignment I like to have specific directions to follow and with this assignment it wasn’t that way. This was an opportunity to be creative and that’s why writing this script was more difficult than imagined.

I actually like the idea of podcasting and if the equipment wasn’t so expensive I would probably go buy the things necessary and start my own podcast channel. I am a person who likes to talk so transforming my writing into something vocal is awesome. It’s fun. This was my first assignment ever in a writing class where I didn’t feel like I had to be hard on myself. Regardless to what I put into my script I can improvise and no one will ever know.

Anchor—was my choice of recording software. One reason why was because it was recommended to the class and I figure whatever a teacher tells you to use when doing an assignment, you better do it! And so I did. Second reason I chose this app for my choice of recording software was because it was very easy to use.

Yes, I am proud of the podcast that I recorded. It was the best but it was good for this being my first time ever doing something like this. I think both the class and my instructor will be very engaged while listening to it.

If I could have a redo I’d put more effort into my script. I would have started the script the day or day after I had it so I would’ve had more time to ask questions and make things more  

interesting. I’d also loosen up more while recording my podcast. In the recording I sounded as if I was reading from my script and that wasn’t the tone I was going for at all. Overall this podcast assignment is one that I will never forget. It was very fun, different, and a nice break from a lot of the other homework I was receiving in my other classes.

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Project No. 3

Neutrogena Rhetorical Analysis In the commercials I have selected to analyze they both are commercial ads for the same company—Neutrogena. And the company uses their ads to speak to a very broad audience. Not just women and young girls. Their advertisements are for everyone: but mostly advertised to a female audience. They set out to reach the people who are prone to acne, and the people who aren’t. But I’d like to analyze how their approach to reach said audiences has changed over the years. Back in 1995 they selected Martha Quinn to be the face of their brand/company because she was a very popular actress back then which is how this ad uses logos by using an actor who has pretty skin they build creditability that their product must work. This commercial is very fun. It is a commercial being shot through one camera looking into another. It has very dark, almost little to no light. Martha Quinn is sitting on a couch and it gives the commercial the vibe that the message will be very relaxed almost like the speaker is just kicking it with her audience and recommending this product to a friend. During this commercial Martha Quinn screams a few times and this isn’t accidentally. The company purposely wanted to add this dramatic effect because it helped with the use of pathos that the commercial was missing. Quinn mentioned that she was embarrassed by her acne and that is why she screamed. Her screaming referenced acne as being this terrible thing that everyone is afraid of, she is frustrated with it. And that is not only relatable but pulls on the emotions of all the commercials audience. It helps the audience to feel like “hey I am not alone,” even people as famous as Martha Quinn has acne and if she trust this product then so should they. Also, the ad uses ethos when Marth briefly speaks about how people use harsh skin care products on their face and that can contribute to acne as well and then she transitioned into saying that Neutrogena isn’t harsh like the other products out there that people use and made the point that it would be logically to use their product because it doesn’t strip your face if any natural oils and helps more than it harms unlike any other facial cleanser. Fast forward until today and the company still choses to an actresses who has flawless skin to push their product. The game remains the same but the player changes. Back in the 90s Martha Quinn was a pretty big name but today that person is Kristen Bell. The lighting in this commercial is brighter, and everything is white. This too isn’t accidental. The bright lights and white background represent clean. The clean that your skin could be if the audience uses Neutrogena’s products. And now their market has changed a bit. Now, people are more interested in natural things because they believe it is better for the environment and for them. This is why Neutrogena has now gone natural too. In this advertisement logos is brought into play when Kristen Bell mentions that the facial cleanser is dermatologist approved which is something that wasn’t mentioned in the companies’ ad 22 years ago. Maybe because it wasn’t something that consumers cared about then but they do now and Neutrogena knows that and is sure to throw this piece of information into almost all of their ads nowadays. And they also provide statistics in this ad to continue building credibility for example; they provide the audience with the information that Neutrogena Naturals eliminates 99 percent of dirt, oils, and toxins. 99 percent? That’s pretty effective and it sure does make someone/the audience want to buy something that has such high success when it comes to removing dirt, and cleaning your face. Given that this product does eliminate a large percent of dirt, toxins, and oils from faces it puts the ethos of this commercial into play. If a product is clinically proven to work it would make perfect sense to make this product your permanent facial cleanser and add it to your everyday morning routine. This makes this ad most effective.   Overall both of these ads are deliver the same message that Neutrogena can give you the cleanest, most beautiful skin. And as mentioned previously in my very first paragraph they do not set out to exclude anyone this product can be used to fight the acne of anyone’s face. Man or women. Boy or girl. But seeing as how in both commercials the person chosen to represent this product are female which tells me that Neutrogena advertises to the women than men. That is because is more socially acceptable for a man to have acne than women and also because women care more about their faces because society stresses that a woman’s face should be gorgeous or made up at all times. These commercials both have upbeat music playing in the background which plays on the audiences emotions (pathos). If an audience is watching a commercial and the music that is playing they probably won’t buy the product because whenever they see the product in the store all they will remember is the music from the commercial and how it made them feel. Opposed to if the music is happier like in these two ads consumers will think nothing but happy thoughts and have a higher chance of buying Neutrogena facial cleanser. Both ads are fun which is why I decided to choose these two. I use Neutrogena products myself for my face and remain a faithful customer. I can vouch for this brand of cosmetics and say that it actually works so analyzing the two ads that I chose was fun for me because it’s for something that I can personally relate to. Though their approach to reach has changed and will continue to change to keep up with the times but what is consistent in both of these ads is that Neutrogena stands for one thing and one thing only --- and that is clear skin.Neutrogena Rhetorical Analysis

In the commercials I have selected to analyze they both are commercial ads for the same company—Neutrogena. And the company uses their ads to speak to a very broad audience. Not just women and young girls. Their advertisements are for everyone: but mostly advertised to a female audience. They set out to reach the people who are prone to acne, and the people who aren’t. But I’d like to analyze how their approach to reach said audiences has changed over the years.

Back in 1995 they selected Martha Quinn to be the face of their brand/company because she was a very popular actress back then which is how this ad uses logos by using an actor who has pretty skin they build creditability that their product must work. This commercial is very fun. It is a commercial being shot through one camera looking into another. It has very dark, almost little to no light. Martha Quinn is sitting on a couch and it gives the commercial the vibe that the message will be very relaxed almost like the speaker is just kicking it with her audience and recommending this product to a friend. During this commercial Martha Quinn screams a few times and this isn’t accidentally. The company purposely wanted to add this dramatic effect because it helped with the use of pathos that the

commercial was missing. Quinn mentioned that she was embarrassed by her acne and that is why she screamed. Her screaming referenced acne as being this terrible thing that everyone is afraid of, she is frustrated with it. And that is not only relatable but pulls on the emotions of all the commercials audience. It helps the audience to feel like “hey I am not alone,” even people as famous as Martha Quinn has acne and if she trust this product then so should they. Also, the ad uses ethos when Marth briefly speaks about how people use harsh skin care products on their face and that can contribute to acne as well and then she transitioned into saying that Neutrogena isn’t harsh like the other products out there that people use and made the point that it would be logically to use their product because it doesn’t strip your face if any natural oils and helps more than it harms unlike any other facial cleanser.

Fast forward until today and the company still choses to an actresses who has flawless skin to push their product. The game remains the same but the player changes. Back in the 90s Martha Quinn was a pretty big name but today that person is Kristen Bell. The lighting in this commercial is brighter, and everything is white. This too isn’t accidental. The bright lights and white background represent clean. The clean that your skin could be if the audience uses Neutrogena’s products. And now their market has changed a bit. Now, people are more interested in natural things because they believe it is better for the environment and for them. This is why Neutrogena has now gone natural too. In this advertisement logos is brought into play when Kristen Bell mentions that the facial cleanser is dermatologist approved which is something that wasn’t mentioned in the companies’ ad 22 years ago. Maybe because it wasn’t something that consumers cared about then but they do now and Neutrogena knows that and is sure to throw this piece of information into almost all of their ads nowadays. And they also

provide statistics in this ad to continue building credibility for example; they provide the audience with the information that Neutrogena Naturals eliminates 99 percent of dirt, oils, and toxins. 99 percent? That’s pretty effective and it sure does make someone/the audience want to buy something that has such high success when it comes to removing dirt, and cleaning your face. Given that this product does eliminate a large percent of dirt, toxins, and oils from faces it puts the ethos of this commercial into play. If a product is clinically proven to work it would make perfect sense to make this product your permanent facial cleanser and add it to your everyday morning routine. This makes this ad most effective.  

Overall both of these ads are deliver the same message that Neutrogena can give you the cleanest, most beautiful skin. And as mentioned previously in my very first paragraph they do not set out to exclude anyone this product can be used to fight the acne of anyone’s face. Man or women. Boy or girl. But seeing as how in both commercials the person chosen to represent this product are female which tells me that Neutrogena advertises to the women than men. That is because is more socially acceptable for a man to have acne than women and also because women care more about their faces because society stresses that a woman’s face should be gorgeous or made up at all times.

These commercials both have upbeat music playing in the background which plays on the audiences emotions (pathos). If an audience is watching a commercial and the music that is playing they probably won’t buy the product because whenever they see the product in the store all they will remember is the music from the commercial and how it made them feel. Opposed to if the music is happier like in these two ads consumers will think nothing but happy thoughts and have a higher chance of buying Neutrogena facial cleanser.

Both ads are fun which is why I decided to choose these two. I use Neutrogena products myself for my face and remain a faithful customer. I can vouch for this brand of cosmetics and say that it actually works so analyzing the two ads that I chose was fun for me because it’s for something that I can personally relate to. Though their approach to reach has changed and will continue to change to keep up with the times but what is consistent in both of these ads is that Neutrogena stands for one thing and one thing only --- and that is clear skin.