Week #2: Backpacks vs. Briefs response
After reading Carrol’s article I grasped how rhetoric analysis is an aspect of our daily lives that we use not even knowing we do so. In other words, rhetorical analysis is simply a tool for deeper understanding, reading, and thinking. It is when you find yourself in a situation where you are observing what is happening around you, and in your own thoughts making conclusions by one’s interpretations. We constantly do this in our daily lives without even recognizing it. Such an instance that I recall myself using rhetorical analysis would be my observations in my classes. As I enter each of my classes I always inspect the desks, to see which ones are comfortable and which ones are not? With that, I analyze the location of the desks within the classroom where I would feel comfortable sitting for the next 1 hour. After I have decided I always find myself observing my peers walking into the classroom. Thinking about it now realize the thought process that goes through my mind. I question why someone chooses to sit where they sit? Why do they enter the classroom at a certain time when they do? How they dress themselves? I analyze using minute details like what emotion they express as they enter the room. Are they rushed by their need to make it to class on time? Do they look fatigued? Or are they neutral and calm? With these things unknowingly I conclude where they would sit and why they are dressed the way they are. If I interpret a person to be tired, I will conclude them to sit in the back and would further conclude this if they were wearing sweatpants and a baggy hoodie usually in dark colors. If someone looks somewhat put together while looking out of breath and does not acknowledge any open seating around the room and takes a quick seat, I will easily conclude that they are trying to make it in time. I make these assumptions unknowingly and purely based on what I analyze to be true to me. The conclusions I took about someone were based on the experiences and social influences I have witnessed in the real world. It is beyond intriguing how we as humans use our senses to make conclusions very quickly, and yet most of the time we have no recollection of what we analyzed later.