Final Exam Reflective Essay

Your final exam will be a reflective essay in which you write about your experience in this course. Your essay should have three major parts:

I. Response to theme.

First, read Lisa Cullen's article "It's Inconvenient Being Green." In the piece, Cullen suggests that the media-wide focus on "going green" has affected her in both negative and positive ways. You may quote from Cullen's piece in order to defend, argue against, or qualify her claim. In doing so, consider the ways that this sustainability-focused class has changed your perspective or reinforced old ideas about what it means to "go green." In this section of your essay, refer to specific things you've learned, where your research has taken you, and what changes you've made in your life (or hope to someday) regarding sustainability.

II. Rhetorical choices

One of the goals of this class is to become aware of the rhetorical devices that are in our everyday lives. Every day, we are saturated by commercials, brand names, and varying agendas that dominate our landscape. This occurs not only when we walk out of the door, but also when we turn on our computers, read a book, when we speak to others, read a magazine article, listen to music, or look at a webpage.

Write about your process of learning rhetoric in this class and how you used rhetorical choices to: 1. analyze scholarly sources and websites, and 2. read your chosen book and work on Essay #4.

How did you decide on your audience? How did this inform your composition process? (For writing, you can think of all the strategies that we discussed during the course of this class: appeals, fallacies, types of claims, defining terms, deepening claims, counterarguments, transitions, stylistic fluency)

Were you successful in achieving your purpose? Why or why not?
How did ethos, pathos, and logos affect your own pieces?

III. Composing process

Choose one of the major essays (Essays 1-4) you wrote and discuss your composition process. Here are some questions that you might want to consider regarding your composition process. You don’t need to answer “all” of them; there is no right way to discuss your learning/composing process.

• How did you choose your topic(s)?
• What did you learn about yourself while completing the project?
• What did you learn about composing? Be specific and give examples from your work to show what you learned.
• How did your vision change with your drafts? Why did you make, or not make changes?
• How was the conference helpful? How did your instructor's commentary change your work?
• What was the strongest part of your essay? Feel free to incorporate quotes from your essay.
• How did the premise of this class (sustainability) affect your composing process? You can talk about topic, research, etc.

In order to successfully compose this reflective essay, you should speak specifically about your experiences. Avoid vague and abstract phrasing. Refer to your work, to the sources you used, the lectures you heard, etc. The reflective essay should read like a cohesive whole, so use transitions to connect each section to the one that comes before. Tackle the three components in any order you think works best.

Feel free to bring all of your drafts, materials, sources, etc. to class on the final exam day. In addition, you may bring any notes and outlines that will help you draft the reflected piece during the final exam.

You should aim for roughly 1,500 words to adequately reflect on your experiences (about 5-6 pages).

Section 059 will have their final on Friday, April 2 from 9:00-11:30 am in room 3143

Section 092 will have their final on Saturday, April 3, from 9:00-11:30 am
in room 3130 (NOTE THE ROOM CHANGE! THIS IS NOT OUR USUAL LAB!)