Project Reflection |
To begin this project, we learned about justice and moral philosophy. With focus on Utilitarianism, Libertarianism, Rawls’ Justice as Fairness, and Deontology, we determined the various philosophical approaches to political issues and founded our own beliefs in the process. For the actual project, we were required to create both an op-ed article and a political campaign visual. Based on a political issue of our choosing, our op-ed was supposed to integrate a connection to an amendment or article of the Constitution, a connection to a moral philosophy and philosopher, examples of the rhetorical devices (pathos, ethos, and logos) and our stance on our issue through how it affected security, liberty, and equality. As for our visual piece, we were free to go in whichever direction we thought best suited our message, whether that was in the form of a poster, a sculpture, a poem, or something else. This aspect of the project had to clearly communicate our stance on our issue, provide a quote from a moral philosopher, and integrate two of the three rhetorical devices to make the outcome more convincing. Lastly, we had to write an artist statement outlining the symbolism and artistic choices used in the visual piece.
Throughout this project, I grew to understand that the left wing vs. right wing, democrat vs. republican dichotomy didn’t apply to everything. Actually, it was when I abandoned the idea that every stance on every issue fell into at least one of those categories that I was able to more deeply perceive the issues we were studying and better understand opposing viewpoints. I feel that this growth visibly manifested itself into my writing because while my earlier drafts focused on why I disagreed with political views opposite mine controlling a school board’s decisions, my later ones developed into me disagreeing with any political coercion bias whatsoever in how students are taught.
The category of the rubric I feel my project was strongest in was Rhetoric and Argumentation. This is because I started off with way more arguable points than I could actually cover in my article, so I refined by combining and eliminating some of them to make them more effective. Also, I think I included a good mixture of specified and big-picture arguments to give my project broader significance and thus appeal to more people. On the other hand, the category I feel my project was weakest in was Evidence, because what I included in my article wasn’t really varied, and since I had trouble finding evidence that supported the other side of my issue, I don’t think I provided an accurate representation of the opposing argument to my audience and I don’t think I garnered as complete an understanding of it as the writer as I could have.
If I had another week to work on this project and article, I would better integrate my evidence into my op-ed and work harder to have a better example of logos. Since it was taking me awhile to figure out how to actually use logos, I feel that what I did include of it was a little sudden and not as fleshed-out as I’d like it to be. As for my visual piece, given another week I would have made a lot of refinements. Since my original idea for a gel transfer onto canvas didn’t work out, I would have tried it again. I think this idea would have worked the second time had I given the gel more time to dry and had blended the edges a bit more. While I’m very proud of how my Photoshop backup project turned out, it was still a bit disappointing for my original idea not to work out.
Throughout this project, I grew to understand that the left wing vs. right wing, democrat vs. republican dichotomy didn’t apply to everything. Actually, it was when I abandoned the idea that every stance on every issue fell into at least one of those categories that I was able to more deeply perceive the issues we were studying and better understand opposing viewpoints. I feel that this growth visibly manifested itself into my writing because while my earlier drafts focused on why I disagreed with political views opposite mine controlling a school board’s decisions, my later ones developed into me disagreeing with any political coercion bias whatsoever in how students are taught.
The category of the rubric I feel my project was strongest in was Rhetoric and Argumentation. This is because I started off with way more arguable points than I could actually cover in my article, so I refined by combining and eliminating some of them to make them more effective. Also, I think I included a good mixture of specified and big-picture arguments to give my project broader significance and thus appeal to more people. On the other hand, the category I feel my project was weakest in was Evidence, because what I included in my article wasn’t really varied, and since I had trouble finding evidence that supported the other side of my issue, I don’t think I provided an accurate representation of the opposing argument to my audience and I don’t think I garnered as complete an understanding of it as the writer as I could have.
If I had another week to work on this project and article, I would better integrate my evidence into my op-ed and work harder to have a better example of logos. Since it was taking me awhile to figure out how to actually use logos, I feel that what I did include of it was a little sudden and not as fleshed-out as I’d like it to be. As for my visual piece, given another week I would have made a lot of refinements. Since my original idea for a gel transfer onto canvas didn’t work out, I would have tried it again. I think this idea would have worked the second time had I given the gel more time to dry and had blended the edges a bit more. While I’m very proud of how my Photoshop backup project turned out, it was still a bit disappointing for my original idea not to work out.