Overall I do not think my speech was too bad as far as content goes. Looking back I should have added more facts about how the bee population is dwindling and why, in order to give it more context. I think what I did write about though was strong in how it connected civicness, and how it relates to my poster using the rhetorical devices. There are quite a few things I wish I could have changed about my delivery. I get a a lot of anxiety when it comes to public speaking like a lot of people, so that caused me to talk really fast and I said the word “also” very often. “Also” is my version of “um”, and now I know to watch that more for next time. I should have practiced more in a classroom setting. I went the night before in a room to practice and it definitely helped a little, but I think if I did it more then I would have been more comfortable. I also practiced in front of a mirror, but I do not think that helped me much other than watching my hand motions. For next time I think I should record myself, so that I can count how many times I say “also”. I do think the speed at which I talked, and the amount of times I said “also” made my speech more difficult to understand and in effect hindered my message. I also should have added more content to compensate for my fast pace because I had just barely hit three minutes. I do not think the structure of my speech was bad. I used a common place and an ideology as my main topic points and then used examples on how they correlated to being civic. I think having that structure helped get my message across and kept it from being a rhetorical inventory.

• Two ideologies that are prevalent in this Save the Bees Poster are save yourself and save the world. Self interest is something that everyone has, we all want to do what’s best for ourselves. Saving the world is another popular ideology, and according to my artifact the environment could use some saving.
  • The poster is using these ideologies in order to get people to donate three
    pounds and in return they will receive bee friendly seeds that they can plant, thus demonstrating civic engagement.

   

  • These posters are shown in Britain’s subways and online.
    • The audience is broad because it is not specifying a particular group, rather they are creating an audience, which is whoever stumbles across the poster.

• It is common knowledge that people are more likely to do something when they know it will benefit them.

• • Example from poster “almost as much as we need them”
    • The audience will want to know why it would affect them and then when they are convinced they will be more likely to donate.
  • Example from poster  “we are in big trouble”
    • Uses pathos to convince the audience that we are in a dangerous place. If they are in danger it is in the audience’s best interest to donate
  • Example “grow a garden that will help the bees- and the rest of us- thrive”
    • Another example of how the poster uses pathos to appeal to the audience wanting themselves to thrive.
  • Example is “we need them to pollinate our fruits and vegetables”
    • Appeals to logos because logically we the audience can draw the conclusion that we need bees for survival.
  • The organization, Friends of the Earth, stating that they will give the donor seeds when they send the money makes the audience realize that there is something in it for them other than just saving the bees.

• A popular ideology today is that the environment must be saved. This plays into the first ideology because we need the environment in order for us to stay alive.
  • Uses facts to appeal to the audience’s logos.
    • We need bees not just for ourselves, but for our entire environment
  • “Britain’s bees are in trouble. Their habitat is vanishing.”
    • Demonstrates kairos by creating a sense of urgency to the audience. The audience must act soon before the kairos ends.
  • Also another way to interpret the organization giving away bee friendly seeds to the donors gives them another way to contribute back to the environment, demonstrating more civic engagement.

• Self interest and environmental protection are the driving factors in what makes this poster successful. My artifact used these two ideologies to convey to its audience that they should donate and save the bees. After looking at this poster the audience is convinced that it is in their best interest to go out and save the environment by saving the bees.

The companion artifact that I have chosen is a People’s Climate March poster. This poster is a good companion artifact for my Save the Bees poster because they are both about environmental protection. Both are recognizing the state of the Earth and it’s need to change in order for a healthy environment. However, the Save the Bees poster focuses solely on the protection of bees and what people can do to help. The Save the Bees poster invites the audience to take part in protection by planting bee friendly seeds. The  People’s Climate March poster is more about the entire planet and climate change. The People’s Climate March Poster is trying to get the audience’s attention to march in New York City to take a stand on climate change.

These two posters are appropriate for an in-depth analysis because of their similarities and differences. Both posters try to instill a sense of urgency in the audience by writing in red letters that we need the bees to survive, and the People’s Climate March shows the Statue of Liberty, a great American symbol halfway submerged in water. As for the differences the Save the Bees poster relies on it’s words and how they are formatted to get their message across. The quote “They need you almost as much as you need them” is the main source of rhetoric in the poster because it reminds the audience we do need bees in order to survive which appeals to logic. The People’s Climate March poster relies much more on imagery with the Statue of Liberty almost drowning. This picture appeals to the audience’s pathos.

The first topic that I would like to choose for my passion blog is travelling. I would include travel destinations and what there is to do there. I would include information such as what restaurants, museums, and popular tourist attractions to go to. I love travelling which is why this would be a fun kind of blog for me to do. I have not been to many places, but would love to go when I can and travelling being my topic would give me a good chance to do some research. Also this topic is good for conversations because somebody else might have gone to one of these places or they might have an interest to go in the future. A travelling blog that I found is called Young Adventuress. Young Adventuress is a popular blog about Liz Carlson’s numerous expeditions. She has been to around 50 countries, and documents all of her experiences. My blog however may include some personal information from my brief trip to Austria, Germany, and Switzerland, but I can’t really add more experiences what with me being a broke college student. So rather than it being a blog about the places I have been it would be about the places I will go.

The next topic I would choose for my blog is movies. I am constantly on Netflix, so it would help me if I could make that productive. I would pick a random movie and write a review on it in my blog. This is a good topic to have conversations with the other students because if they have seen the movie they can either agree or disagree with what I have said. If they haven’t seen it then they can say if they are interested in watching it and why. A blog I found like this is called Oh! That Film Blog. This blog includes reviews from a girl named Amy Andrews. Our blogs would be the same in the sense that they both include reviews. They would differ because it seems that Amy better understands the technicalities of film, so mine would be more of the common person’s guide to film.

I was initially insulted by the articles title, “Have Smartphones Destroyed A Generation” First of all, who is this author to speak about my generation, what do they know about the kind of world we’re inheriting, and how we have to cope with it? Then to go even further our main tool in our so called “iGen” is under scrutiny. This device, just a little light up block is what keeps me informed of the news, allows me to capture moments with my friends and family, and tracks my activity to keep me healthy. I didn’t even get started on how it helps me communicate. I can make phone calls, text, keep in touch on social media, and face time. The amount of things I can do on just one device is mind blowing. So to say that this same device is ruining my generation is something that I do not believe.

Also when the author talks about the generation today she portrays us as homebodies that are constantly on our phones. I do not believe this to be the case because at least in my high school it definitely seemed like the majority of students had jobs and personally I studied at the very least two hours every night and often times my friends said they studied longer than I had, so I wonder if my school is an outlier in her data or if her data is biased. Statistics are able to be manipulated. Also the thirteen year old girl Athena seems biased about smartphones. How is just one girl going to represent a whole generation when it comes to smartphone usage. I also have to point out that she picked the name Athena after the Greek goddess of wisdom which is a bit much in my opinion.

I do agree to an extent on how smartphones can make people more susceptible to depression. I can understand how seeing all your friends together having a good time on social media while you didn’t get an invite can feel lonely. It is hard to feel excluded when it is right in front of your face when you go on your phone, but it is something you just have to get by because you’ve probably been the one doing the posting at least once.

Smartphones, regardless of their potential negative influences on society are not going away. We are using them habitually, they are being incorporated into businesses, restaurants, schools, and many more. Whatever unfavorable effects they have on society are something we have to adapt to because like it or not they do a lot to help us as well.

Aristotle defines rhetoric as “the ability to see what is possibly persuasive in any given case” (Rapp, p.5). This definition helps me to understand rhetoric better because it is in likeness of a person having an open mind and having the ability to see all the parts of an argument in order to create their own argument or make it better. Aristotle’s definition is also helpful when it comes to understanding the term rhetorician. A rhetorician is just a person that has the capability of seeing every side of an argument, making it easier for them to create their own and use it successfully.  

Another definition of rhetoric comes from Roland Barthes and he states, “ rhetoric is a technique, i.e., an “art,” in the classical sense of the word; the art of persuasion, a body of rules and recipes whose implementation makes it possible to convince the hearer of the discourse (and later the reader of the work), even if what he is to be convinced of is ‘false’” (Rhetoric and Writing Studies, p. 19). This definition means rhetoric is the way of persuading somebody. Then the rhetorician would mean it is somebody that is very persuasive and difficult to argue with.

The difference between the ancient and the modern definitions is that the modern definition loses where the person is able to see all sides of an argument. The definitions are very similar in the idea that it has to do with a person persuading another, but the ancient definition incorporates how it is done. Also the meaning of a rhetorician changes because it goes from somebody that is able to understand another’s argument and counter it to a person that is just simply persuasive.

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