Excellence in oral Language
Through COM 348 Argumentation and COM 250 NONverbal communication I have successfully learned to provide written and oral language in an efficient and educated manner. Argumentation not only taught me how to speak in front of a group of my peers, but to challenge them. To be a leader and a teammate you have to posses the ability to respectfully disagree and then be able top explain why. I can confidentially say that i am able to calmly disagree with someone and provide a concise argument as to why, without being disrespectful. Nonverbal communication taught me the how to hear someone without them having to speak. To pick up on nonverbal cues to ensure a proper understanding of how someone feels. Both of the skills are beneficial in the social and professional world. We live in a fast paced world where people dont like to stop and take a moment to listen to each other. Taking the time to listen and properly communicate are two skills that are missing in todays society.
Excellence in written Language
Diversity and equality are two important themes that I feel passionate about. In an ever changing society that thrives on growth, the generation I grew up in advocates for diversity. We force people to see what needs to be changed in the world and we dont do it quietly. This is why for my COM 340 class, Rhetoric and Pop Culture, I wrote a think piece on Sexuality within modern Literature and how it has changed women all over the world. I am passionate about advocacy on women's rights and it is a subject I hold close to my heart. I wrote my think piece on sexuality because it is a prominate conversation in today's society. I decided to go at my project with a sex positive attitude in the hopes that other women would read it and gain something. COM 340 was one of those class that I will always remember. It taught me to be bold and confident in my opinions, while also being aware of how I voice them. It educated me on Rhetoric in the media and how to properly market a product. I will forever take the knowledge I gained from this course and use it to build my future.
More Written and Oral Work
Family Holiday Traditions: Interview
The holidays are a time for rest, reflection, appreciation, and family. Growing up, Christmas always excited me the most because every Christmas eve my mom’s side of the family came over for our annual Christmas eve party. Although the morning is always filled with chaos from my parents cleaning, yelling for us to make up our beds, no matter how old my three sisters and I get, the excitement is always there. My mother’s side of the family is very Italian, so one Christmas eve tradition is her homemade meatballs that are the size of a baseball. I wasn’t sure when this tradition started but it has been around for as long as I can remember. Italians are loud people who like to talk over each other and yell, so our family party is very hectic and filled with laughs. With all that in mind I look forward to this function because of all the joy and peace it brings me. There is something about traditions and holidays that make time stop, so that you can enjoy every conversation, smile, gesture, and meal that otherwise would be looked over.
As someone who enjoys self-reflection and the concept of growth, I believe Aveni describes it best in What Goes Around by saying, “Those red- letter days that mark the rest points, the reflective moments in our journey around the annual wheel of time” (P.166). This quote describes the way I feel around every holiday, especially Christmas. A time of reflection and rest so that we can look back at our life’s and see what we are proud of and what we need to grow on as humans. Its in our nature and our history to gather and draw focus on celebration of life, be it crop growth, religion, or even death. Avenis focus on time is fascinating because the author likes to question things that other people would not. For example, on page two of The Book of the Year, Aveni questions why January is the first month out of the year, and why is it? Why do we get drunk and party on a day that marks the first day of the new year. I believe Christmas and new year’s bring forth hope and forgiveness for oneself, which is cause for celebration. We celebrate these holidays so intensely because we live in a world where we have little to no control. Traditions and celebration give us a push, or a step forward that gives us an opportunity to stand still and focus on what want out of life.
Looking back, I realize that my family has far more traditions than I realized. Our annual Christmas eve party and my mom’s famous meatballs are two of the most prominent traditions in my family, and I wanted to know why they started. During my interview with my mom, she explained that her grandmother, whom I never got the pleasure of meeting, passed down this famous meatball recipe to her. My mother decided to make them every Christmas eve to make sure, my great grandmother was still apart of our celebration. Instead, the “traditional Christmas” meals, my family cooks pasta, meatballs, and drinks wine. This is my traditional Christmas meal and I find it beautiful that every family has their own definition of that. My mom chose to have a annual Christmas eve party to make sure that her side of the family comes together each year and celebrates Italian culture and to be in each other’s company. Although its stressful, hectic, and very loud, our party is more than just a party, it is a legacy that will continue to grow and evolve just like we do as people.
Christmas gives me something that nothing else does, which is, time. The ability to be still in a world that’s constantly moving. Holidays can be stressful for many people, but for me the hunt for the perfect present and the relief of consistency with tradition, give me peace that nothing else truly can. “we manipulated time, developed and enhanced it, processed, compressed, and packaged it to conform to our perceived needs” (Anthony Aveni).
New Year’s Resolutions: Kenneth Burke Style
I came into this class seeing holidays only for the way in which they are celebrated. I saw Mother’s Day only as a day to thank our mothers for what they have given us. When I think of Mother’s Day now, thanks to Anna Jarvis, I see images of mourning mothers, whose husbands died in the war, and whose suffering has quite frankly been taken advantage of by large corporations. I no longer think of pumpkins and ghosts when Halloween comes up in conversation. Now, I see Halloween as a holiday rooted in its Christian origins, potentially inspired by All Saint’s Day. No more do I appreciate costumes for their “spookiness,” but now for the way that they create freedom and promote expression, and for how the anonymity that a mask brings can help people flourish as who they are.
To put it simply, my mind has been opened this semester. In general, the holidays are now a time of remembrance and the pursuit of change for me. Behind every ritual or celebration, there is history. I look at our holidays with intrigue and wariness. It can be dangerous to celebrate a holiday without greater context. The Fourth of July may celebrate freedom, but perhaps celebrating the holiday with a closed mind fails to recognize the lack of reparations for the slaves who fought in that same war of independence, and the lack of genuine freedom and opportunity for many Black Americans today because of this. I value my open-mindedness regarding holidays. This mindset means that I’m better equipped to advocate for change, that I’m more likely to research our country’s past, and that I can be more sensitive to those who have been far more negatively impacted by our nation’s history than I have myself.
In his work, Kenneth Burke refers to the term “mortification” as a way of taking accountability to potentially “purify” a situation and remove guilt. Purification in this way has the ability to remove “pollution,” which refers to actions that can create guilt. If I was to recognize how my own acts are negatively contributing to the general trend of climate change, for example, then I could take steps to lessen my impact individually. This would be a form of mortification. However, “victimization” refers to putting blame on something externally from ourselves. This can oftentimes take the form of “scapegoating,” where we remove our own guilt by singling out an individual or group on who we, instead, put blame on. In the example of global warming, one would be scapegoating if they were to single out New York City and its overpopulated metropolitan area, for example, as the reason for climate change. In this case, “fixing New York” would purify the situation. As well as this, commonly associated with victimization is the “Tragic Frame,” where we focus on how one single body, an external source, has been allowed to become such a problem. In greater alignment with mortification, there is also a “Comic Frame,” where we recognize the ridiculousness of our action in the creation of sin and, thus, we can remove guilt by moving on from this absurdity.
Overall, the contradicting terms of “scapegoating” and “mortification” present us with two different ways to set New Year’s goals. We can set goals that may feel relieving, but in order to make our goals truly beneficial, we should attempt to make our goals more “mortifying.” This idea motivates us to hold ourselves to the highest level of accountability and to set goals that we can achieve in the most direct manner. To create goals based on the concept of scapegoating would be to, instead, set goals that aren’t our own.
New year’s resolutions have always been something, at least for me, not taken too seriously. They usually seem artificial or simple like wanting to smile more or be friendly to strangers more often. I want to make my resolutions defy the classic scapegoat resolutions that Burke speaks on. This year my resolutions are going to be aimed at improving my footprint and Impact on the world. Something that causes guilt for me is buying into fast fashion and expensive clothing brands when I can find the same clothes at a second-hand shop. Like most people, shopping can be therapeutic and enjoyable, but I do find myself buying unnecessary things that I don’t end up wearing. This tends to make me feel bad not only for spending too much money but for adding to the issue of fast fashion and consumption.
Another resolution that I find important and overlooked in my life is to try and limit the amount of driving I do. Living in a college town it is easy to get from point A to B without driving a car, but I often find myself driving despite this fact. Being someone who cares so much about the environment, it can come across as hypocritical in my mind, that I drive so much. I like to blame it on the busy roads and rain, but the truth is that driving is just easier. This semester my goal is to walk as much as possible, for the sake of the environment and to meet my standards without any scapegoats.
Burke’s interesting and mortifying point of view on new year’s resolutions has changed my perspective on the concept as a whole. This ideology disrupts the average idea of what a resolution stands for and makes you consider the truth behind the “new year, new me” concept. Although I don’t agree with all of Burke’s opinions, the terms scapegoat and pollution will stick with me every new year when I decide what I want to change about myself or my life. I am excited and hopeful this new year, to celebrate all aspects of life while holding myself accountable.