Presidential Rhetoric Analysis

1312 Words3 Pages

For my English 1101 class last semester, I studied “Presidential Rhetoric” which was particularly interesting because the timing ran parallel with the Presidential Election in the United States. The election outcome showed a victory for Republicans as their candidate, Donald Trump, became the 45th President of the United States. For many, this result was devastating because of the possible negative implications for minorities in terms of race, gender, and sexuality based on many of Trump’s comments. As somebody who is particularly interested in social justice, taking an English class based around race, gender, and sexuality would benefit me by becoming more educated about the implications facing these communities due to the election’s outcome. …show more content…

Artifact 2 required a small group and I to analyze technical aspects (lighting, framing, costumes, etc.) of a scene from the movie Moonlight through an annotated video, plus an individual short essay (King). The process leading up to Artifact 1 was the same as Artifact 2, we developed a thesis and team plan. Our thesis revolved heavily around how the concept of “black masculinity” is expressed throughout the film. Then, we each chose a specific aspect that we would like to analyze. I chose costuming. Similar to sexuality in comics, I had never paid much attention to costuming in film until learning about the concept of implicit meaning. Implicit meaning describes an abstract meaning that goes beyond what is explicitly stated in the film. I learned about costumes can reflect a character’s growth, status, and emotion. On a technical note, I ran in to difficulties with visual communication during this project. My group and I had no idea how to annotate a video. Thus, we did research and discovered that YouTube had a built-in method for annotating videos which helped my group and I tremendously. However, to make matters worse, we ran in to a copyright issue. The copyright issue taught me about the importance of citing my sources to avoid this from happening in the future. Not only did this Artifact teach me about the importance of implicit meaning in film, but I also learned about how toxic the concept of …show more content…

Artifact 3 required a small group and I to compose a movie trailer for novel The Celestial Jukebox by Cynthia Shearer and write an essay describing the components of the trailer (King). Luckily, one of my group members was talented enough with video editing software and took matters in to her hands for the most part with the trailer. However, there were predicaments amongst the group regarding casting. While this was a challenge initially, it was easily overcome and taught me how to become a better group member by solving conflicts. Once issues regarding casting were resolved, we composed a beautiful trailer that captured the novel. Then, we began writing the team essay. The essay portion of this assignment further proved my thesis in Artifact 0 correct. I had lots of trouble writing without being able to use a visual aid. To overcome this challenge, I asked for help from my group they let me see how they were structuring their writing. My group helped me dramatically and I was able to overcome my struggle. This Artifact not only helped me become a better team member, but discover the importance of

Open Document