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Rhetoric and Civic Life
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As a scholar at Penn State's Schreyer Honors College, I enrolled in a year-long seminar called Rhetoric and Civic Life. The purpose of this course is to educate students on both current civic issues, and how to tackle them through various techniques of argument.
Throughout this course, students are required to maintain three blogs, and produce a combination of individual papers and team projects. All of these assignments help the student develop critical and analytical thinking skills, through analysis on how modern society and rhetoric functions.
Blog Samples
In-Map-Bitants
My most favorite blog that I wrote for Rhetoric and Civic life was my first-semester passion blog, In-Map-Bitants.
In-Map-Bitants primarily deals with my interactions with local geographies. This is done through examining the architecture, location, and construction of our world's buildings and neighborhoods. Additionally, I have posted on future ideas that can affect where and how we as a society live and interact.
I started In-Map-Bitants because I have always had a deep interest in transportation and exploring my town with my bike.
Read In-Map-Bitants
Sample Post: The Hibernation of Central Campus
High Schoolers Becoming Businesses
For my Civic Issue Blog, I wanted to discuss how high school competition is an increasingly important issue in society.
High Schoolers Becomes Businesses analyses the root causes of how competition has become a factor in a teenager's everyday life. I break down three root cause of such a compeition (science fairs, standardized curricula, and standardized exams), and explain why they hurt our teenagers' ability to be creative.
After this initial analysis, I reveal why subjectivity is not only found in creativity, but all comparisons as a whole, including standardized curricula. It turns out that no educational system can completely eliminate bias. However, some alternatives have been proposed, which minimize the effect of bias on competition.
Read High Schoolers Becoming Businesses
Sample Post: Defying Subjectivity
Class Projects
CIVIC ARTIFACT PAPER: EMIRATES V. LUFTHANSA
I have always had an affinity to flying around the world, and two of my favorite airlines are Emirates and Lufthansa. In this paper, I compare an Emirates advertisement with a Lufthansa billboard ad, and analyze the rhetorical choices made by each. In principle, the Emirates commercial focused on society as a whole, while Lufthansa strived to connect with the individual passenger.
PARADIGM SHIFTS IN SUBURBIA
The purpose of this paper is to analyze a shift in thought over a timer period. My paradigm shift paper was on the shifts of demographic segregation in America's suburban communities. It turns out that while the early suburbs were highly restricted to only a white population, recent trends and migrations since the 1990s have brought more and more minorities away from cities.
TED TALK ON SUBURBIA'S DEMOGRAPHICS
This Ted Talk-style speech is an extension of my paradigm shift paper. I described the migration of Asian-American immigrants into the USA, which were a big driver to starting ethnic edge-cities deep in the suburbs. Most of my explanations are done through geographic diagrams that I personally made.
THE CONTROVERSY OF THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE
In this group project, we made a TV debate snipped called the Really Cool Late Show, on whether or not the electoral college should be kept. The electoral college has been a pressing issue in the last several general elections. Nevertheless, some of its tactics have merit. The purpose of this project is to educate both sides on the merits of the opposing viewpoint on the issue.
THE HEROIN AND OPIOID CRISIS
A group of 11 classmates and I staged a public deliberation on what should be done to protect the State College community against the heroin crisis. Through this deliberation, we asked for the input of community members, and attempted to find matching concerns. However, what we took out from this was that more community members needed to be present to formulate a more effective solution.
BRIEF ON PARKLAND SD'S OVERCROWDING ISSUE
My home school district, Parkland, is experiencing serious overcrowding issues. This is due to the fact that nearly all development is skewed on the south side of the district, and served by the same middle school, Springhouse. Through this brief, I analyzed the local geography and economics of various solutions to this issue. From this analysis, I concluded that a construction of a third middle school, near the newly-constructed homes, is recommended.
BUILD A THIRD MIDDLE SCHOOL CAMPAIGN
The final project of Rhetoric and Civic Life involved developing an advocacy project on a particular issue. My project was on informing the general public about the Parkland School District's (my home district's) overcrowding issue and why a third middle school must be constructed. I created an emotional Ted Talk and developed an informative companion website.
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