To Next Year's English 110 Students

Dear future 110 students,

I'm not going to lie to you and tell you that this writing course will be easy. It is honestly the same as some writing courses that you have taken but also different in a lot of ways. Throughout the course of these 10 weeks, I have truly worked my brain in ways that I thought I would not at all. I feel like I am leaving this class with a new outlook on what it takes to be a writer.

To be successful in this class and to write a pretty good RAP (rhetorical analysis project), you need many things. First, I would say bring all the expericence you have from writing that you did in high school or even from the college courses you have taken up to this English course. Second, I would say come to class with an open mind about college writing and the types of things they allow you to write about. Each English course has a specific theme assigned to that section. These range from heroism in movies to the rhetoric (underlying message) that is in texts we look at whether it be commericals, TV shows, or movie trailers. Some of the themes may be like "oh! This should be no problem whatsoever!", others are like "WHAT NOW ?!" I feel like the professors (well mines at least) do a good job of making it clear to you as a student what your job is as a writer in the project. You spend a good bit of time on it even though you may not get as much time as you like. But that's one of the many things you deal with being on the quarter system.

For me, there wasn't one specific route I chose to go down to make my paper a good one. I tried many different things. I think the best advice I can offer you as a student who has taken this course before is to just WRITE. You don't even have to neccessarily know what direction you wanna go the first time around. Just write your thoughts about the theme you have. What types of things really interest you about the topic? What things do you really dislike?,etc. It will help you a lot more when you get to the actual writing of the paper.

I hope the advice I have offered you is most helpful. Have fun, good luck, and as always...

GO BUCKS!,

Tacoi