The entire RCL program was undoubtedly one of the most enjoyable learning experiences I’ve had as a student. The contents we explored and the skills we developed are applicable beyond just the classroom, preparing us to become proper citizens in our communities. The two courses not only helped me learn how to analyze different texts but also how to construct and communicate my ideas from those analyses in an effective and persuasive way. Overall, the program offered new and original opportunities for various forms of deliberation and critical thinking in a group setting, which is a skill I believe I needed improvement on prior to this academic year. Whether it be the level of my analysis or the use of rhetoric in my communication and presentation of ideas, I believe that I’ve grown in almost every aspect concerning rhetoric and civic life.
An aspect of the RCL program that I really appreciated was the amount of personality I was able to include in my work. In previous English classes, a prompt would be heavily enforced for writing, but RCL provided a level of freedom that allowed me to be more creative and personal with the works that I produced. RCL helped me realize that good writing is more than following a set of guidelines. Good writing requires passion, the application of that passion to a broader context, and the proper delivery of the resulting ideas to be easily understood by readers. Overall, I believe I have become a much more effective writer through the utilization of these skills that I learned in RCL.
Another concept that I learned in RCL is the importance of deliberation. On that note, it was great how the learning environment was much more collaborative than independent, such as in a lecture. Different people think in different ways, so the best ideas are formed when people come together and communicate their individual ideas. I noticed that, often times, my peers would share ideas that I may have never thought of and vice versa. It was very insightful to see and learn different perspectives from a community of fellow learners.
For my e-portfolio, I have chosen the following artifacts to represent my work and development over the past academic year: Civic Artifact Speech, Evolving Ideas Research Paper, “This I Believe” Podcast, and Passion Blog #1. A common theme between these four projects is that they all allowed me to draw out my passion for each of their respectful topics. I was never a passionate writer. I strictly wrote with my head without an ounce of my heart. However, I now know how to incorporate my heart into my writing to better convey my thoughts, which is evident through my deep, creative analyses and explanations in all four of the projects. These projects went beyond just the gathering of information and organizing it into writing, which are skills I believe I was proficient at even prior to taking the two RCL courses. Rather than research, these projects emphasized the delivery of information acquired from research, something of which I had little exposure to. Most of my assignments for general English classes in high school were research-based essays and papers with very rigid prompts and rubrics, which limited the ways in which I could deliver my findings. However, the work given in RCL allowed for greater creativity by taking on various forms that I wasn’t so used to, such as presentations, speeches, videos, and blogs. Thus, by working through each of my chosen artifacts, all of which took on non-essay forms, I was given the opportunity to practice and improve various forms of delivery of information and ideas throughout the past two semesters.
Overall, RCL1 and RCL2 are two of the few classes in which I genuinely got a lot out of. Beyond simply gaining new knowledge, I feel like I genuinely grew as a person by taking these two courses. I believe I’ve become a more contributive member of society through the writing and communication skills I developed from the different assignments and discussions in class. Both RCL classes were very enjoyable and left me with something that I can use for the rest of my life to come.