I have chosen to focus my project on workplace discrimination and have decided to demonstrate my ideas through a photojournalism piece. I find visual mediums to be particularly striking, especially when representing civil oppression. As of right now, I am in the production stage. I have been setting up and taking photos for my project and attempting to put order to them to create a coherent story. Concerning the paper portion, I find myself writing in bits and pieces as I go along. I'm not yet sure how I will divide up my writing into my final project, but I do not pla

Describe your process thus far with the final project. Have you started the paper portion of the paper yet? Have you decided which of the required genres you are going to create for the project? Give details. What are your major obstacles thus far? Develop your plan for this week to finish the project and be ready to present next week. Everyone must be ready on Tuesday, even if we do not get to you. Names will be drawn this time as opposed to volunteering, so be prepared. 

         Our classmates provided us with many successful Decision 2012 projects on various topics using differing genres and during presentations, a select few had stood out to me for their own reasons. Sarah’s use of loaded genres, or genres that include both literary and visual aspects while appealing to both logos and pathos, made her project jump off of the screen and come alive in ways that not all projects were capable of and ultimately, it is these aforementioned characteristics that made her project as successful as it could be. 
          Sarah’s blog was highly accessible. The page by page layout provided a solid form of organization and made an almost Ikea like form of blog. She speaks to an audience that seems to be young and if not, she most definitely speaks to someone who falls on the liberal side of the political spectrum. Because of this, as I happen to be a member of both of her target audiences, I felt that her blog was very effective, easy to follow, and persuasive in its own right.
          She used appeals that followed both logos and pathos. The images that she included, even from the onset of her project in her prologue, appealed to the emotional side of her audience. She paid high attention to detail especially when considering the emotional appeal to her reader, wherein even her buttons that connect her pages read sayings like, “Help Start a Revolution” and “A Story of Love” as opposed to “Next” or something else generic.
          Her blog seemed as if it was constructed quite carefully. She was cognoscente of the fact that there are many people in our society that may not agree with the message that her project was promoting and, subliminally, made rather clear that this piece was not for them. She stayed true to her topic throughout and delivered a clear, coherent display of equality for gay Americans.
          Sarah's use of color and brightness worked well to substantiate her claims of a promising future and hope. Though her project served mainly as a vessel through which she was able to highlight the nation's flaws in providing equal rights to gay Americans, she kept the image of a promising future throughout. Her fonts were easy to read and helped to invite her reader into her project and there was no particular formatting issue that detracted from her work. Her project was clean and simple, especially because of her choice to create separate pages and hence, worked nicely to educate her reader. 
          Because of the written and stylistic choices that Sarah made in her Decision 2012 multimodal project and her use of logos and pathos to appeal to her reader, her final product was one that stood out from the rest of the class. Her formatting approach was simplistic and effective and her genres were varied and loaded, wherein she appealed to many sense of her reader simultaneously. Consequently, Sarah has left her reader with one hell of a multigenre punch and in turn, an impressive statement on equa

In yours or other's projects, how have you used or seen social meanings, specific to a particular culture? When you compose, do you consider the specific social meanings of words, of letters, of colour and font-types with all their cultural resonances? Give an example.

          Specifically in my own composition, because of my English major, I find that I am often times predisposed to think about the way that I write and the implications that my writing has as I am writing. Again, because of my major, the stylistic elements do not usually play such a large role in the ways that I compose. I typically write in black ink, on white paper, and in an analytical fashion about some literary work. With my addition of a writing arts minor, I have found that these boundaries have become exponentially expanded as I now find myself writing on blogs and twitter as part of a school assignment. This compositional freedom is something that is still quite foreign to me.

Do you think that pictures can better convey your messages than words can?

          Yes. I have always been more affected by an image than I am by words. While there are specific exceptions to this, as I usually find when I am reading or listening to poetry, I often feel that images have much more bang for their buck. I enjoy the subjective nature of images, wherein writing is not always left to the reader's interpretation. Because of my major, I find that I often am drawn to imagery because I feel as if there is a greater form of meaning to be derived from it.

Does considering the meaning of the images chosen in the projects you're doing your rhetorical analysis on help you to better understand the project?

Yes. Sarah's project contains a well balanced mix of words and images, both of which work to enhance the validity of the other. Her inclusion of images brings a visual quality to her work and makes it even more appealing to her reader. The images help to draw her reader in and in turn, attract them to her writing. Arguably, without her inclusion of images, her project would not be as effective.

Lastly, list at least FIVE issues (not topics) that directly affect you and that you are passionate about.

• Civil Union Law of New Jersey
• Ridiculous ongoing battle between Church and State
• Nation's inability to recognize civil rights
• Women are STILL earning 71 cents to the male dollar
• Stigma attached to women's health care rights
• National need to categorize "liberal" and "conservative" viewpoints
• "Traditional" family values
•