Shelby Foster
Dr. Heather Bryant
English 138T
29 April, 2013
A Year of RCL – A Reflection
Being a part of RCL this past year was a great experience. I really think that
having the same professor and being surrounded by the same students for two
consecutive semesters benefited all of us. My professor really came to know me; she
understood my interests and how I like to write. One semester is not a long time, and
working with the same professor for two semesters provided much more opportunity for
receiving help with my writing from someone who knew me better than most professors
get the opportunity to. My writing skills improved tremendously as a result of working
with my professor for a whole year. She saw the errors that I had a habit of making and I
am confident that a year of working with her truly made me a better writer. It was also
very comforting to be surrounded by the same students in English class for two
semesters, especially as a freshman. My class became very close and I’m sure that many
of us will remain friends for years to come. We watched each other grow as students and
writers, while also helping each other grow through peer editing. Year long blogging also
proved quite useful; weekly writing definitely kept my creative juices flowing even in
between assignments.
RCL began with the introductory speech. Speeches are always a bit intimidating,
especially in front of a professor and students that you just met. I talked about how my
father inspires me every day, and I think it was a good representation of my character and
values. My nerves somewhat got the best of me, and while my speech didn’t go horribly I
certainly wished that it went better. The next assignment was the rhetorical analysis essay
and I initially did not know what to write about. After a lot of thought, I took on an
ambitious idea to analyze a poem by Robert Frost, “Nothing Gold Can Stay”, alongside
of S.E. Hinton’s novel, “The Outsiders”. These works were two of my favorites in high
school, as they teach an important life lesson of learning to accept that perfection is
almost unachievable and impossible to attain. Both the poem and novel show the reader
to accept mistakes and flaws and use them to better ourselves. I am very passionate about
the ideas presented in the works and use them as some of my personal mottoes.
Analyzing these ideas was a nice transition from my speech that I wasn’t entirely
satisfied with; it reminded me that I am not perfect and I shouldn’t expect myself to be.
The next two assignments really excited me; the rhetorical analysis essay and TED talk
gave me an opportunity to really invest myself in something that I am passionate about. I
chose embryonic stem cell research – presenting the dual sides of the surrounding
argument in my essay and talking about why embryonic stem cell research should be
pursued in my TED talk. My paper went really well; I found a lot of really neat statistics
and facts while also getting to the roots of why certain people do not agree with the
research. My facts and passion for the topic led to a TED talk that I am proud of. I
presented a combination of factual information and emotional appeal, making my talk
interesting and easy to listen to. Lastly, we ended the fall semester with the public
controversy project. Working in groups, myself and three of my classmates tackled the
Sandusky scandal and its effects on the Penn State football program. We gave a recap of
the most exciting and uplifting moments of last year’s football season and I was really
proud of the project. It required a ton of work – several late nights during the end of the
semester crunch – and I was really happy with how it turned out. The first semester’s
projects seemed to have a common element of developing where we stood with certain
issues and not being afraid to take a stance on an issue, regardless of its
unconventionality or controversy.
In the spring, I returned to my familiar English class amidst the change of a new
semester and the familiar faces comforted me. The first project of the semester was the
“This I Believe” podcast. We chose any topic and explained for 3-5 what it meant to us. I
chose something fresh in my mind – how much I missed living at home. I talked about
how anxious I was to get to college, only to long for my home once I got here. My theme
was “you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone”, and I focused on appreciating the
things we so often take for granted, like our homes and parents. Next we moved to the
seemingly endless deliberation unit. As you can probably already tell from my tone, this
unit was not my favorite. We broke up into groups to discuss a pamphlet containing
sustainability options. While we found ways to make the conversation interesting, the
sustainability topic was dull for the most part. As a whole, most people believe that
refraining from polluting the earth and keeping it around for future generations are
generally good things, so the deliberation never really got too heated as there was very
little disagreement. We took turns being the moderator of the group, trying to take the
discussion in different directions, but opinions and discussion remained pretty constant
and low-key throughout. We were also asked to participate in an online discussion of our
choosing, and this proved to be the most interesting part of the unit. Talking to people
online gave me the controversial discussion that I craved during the in class deliberation.
I talked to people on a politics forum, so naturally there was tons of disagreement, which
led to interesting discussion. To wrap up the unit, we wrote moderator statements,
summaries of our in class deliberation, and summaries of our online deliberation. The end
of the semester included a persuasive essay on a topic of our choice and then a project
advocating for something related to our persuasive essay. Once again, I chose a science
topic and advocated for evolution. I found some really interesting facts that were not the
typical evolution facts about Darwin and natural selection. I tried to take an
unconventional approach to a topic that is argued over way too often and I was pleased
with how it turned out. I learned a lot from my writing and from my advocacy project,
while continuing to overcome my fear of offending people with my beliefs.
To conclude, I really enjoyed being a part of this course. I learned so much and
feel that I really developed as a writer and rhetorician. I took a lot away from this class,
but I'd have to say that the thing that sticks out most in my mind if feeling confident in
expressing myself. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, yet we live in a world
where we must constantly worry about being politically correct. Regardless of how
correct we are as per societal views, however, I think it is important to be confident in
your opinion. This course taught be that I can express my views in a polite and "correct"
fashion, while also using strong arguments and making my opinion heard. I'm actually
quite sad to be finishing the course, but I am confident that I will use the lessons I learned
in RCL throughout the rest of my college career and life.