I wrote 3 possible short responses to my own prompts - see what you think of them! With your journal, you welcome to respond to only one of the options, but if you run out of ideas, you can also do the same thing and have a couple of unrelated responses if you wish - just be sure to develop them. 500-1000 words is recommended; if you wish, you can certainly go above that (but don't make this difficult for yourself!)
As I noted before, Journals are not meant to be formal writing and I certainly do not expect either totally polished writing or fully-fleshed-out ideas. The point of the exercise is for you to prove that you can develop ideas in an intelligent, rhetorical way and connect them to both your personal experience and theory we discuss in class.
So, here is what I wrote…
(1) Think of a favourite...
One of my favourite music artists is the Russian rock band Aquarium. They appeal to me for three main reasons: the diversity of musical styles and influences found in their work, the cleverness and positive messages of their lyrics, and the personality of their lead singer whom I can closely relate to.
Aquarium are one of the first rock bands to appear in Russia, starting as an underground duo in the 1970s. While they started out as an acoustic rock band, they brought in many different styles as the band grew and changed. Many of their albums incorporate elements of Russian folk music, reggae, industrial, progressive rock, African drum music and Buddhist chants, Celtic fiddle and Japanese koto – sometimes all at the same time. Listening to them made me curious about music from all over the world, and motivated me to explore things outside my usual listening range. Thus you could say that the band is aesthetically interesting.
The band's lyrics are always an interesting mix of surreal comedy, biting social commentary, and spiritual philosophy that encourages listeners to think, feel and live freely but responsibly. It's a positive ethical message, but it's also worded very cleverly. In fact, because the band started out under an oppressive Soviet regime, Aquarium had to be clever with their language and use metaphors and 'code language' to avoid being censored (or losing their day jobs, or going to jail). This resulted in some pretty hilarious, smart lyrics that cleverly said exactly what the band wanted to say but avoided trouble. Thus you could say that the band is intellectually very engaging and also promotes a positive ethos.
Finally, the band's unchanging lead singer and lyricist B.G. (Boris Grebenschikov) is a personality that I can relate to very closely. In the early days of the band's underground career, he found himself in a low-paying academic job that left him with limited freedom, and lived in a society that sometimes filled him with doubt and anxiety. However he stuck to his values and ideals, kept his thirst for new knowledge and new opportunities to change the world, and stuck close to his trusted friends. This is clearly reflected in many of his songs. He stood up to censorship and oppression, paid for it dearly by losing his job and being hounded by authorities, but continued making music, even when he couldn't afford food and a place of his own. When the Soviet regime fell, he refused to become a celebrity and continued making biting critiques of life in the new Russia. His positive philosophy, which I already mentioned, really makes him one of the most influential cultural figures in my life. I believe he is a good example of an ethical role model.
Thus, I really like the band Aquarium and I believe they have made a positive difference in my life through engaging me intellectually, ethically and emotionally.
2) Think of good rhetoric that convinced you...
I already mentioned in class that I have always been a big fan of airplanes and aviation, but I have also been afraid of actually flying for a long time. You could say that this was something that I was originally persuaded into that position by my parents who were themselves afraid of flying, and convinced me to be like them through their ethos (as parents and therefore authority figures), and pathos (scary things that happen when airplanes crash). So, I was often really scared while flying on airplanes, imagining wings falling off, mountains hiding in clouds, or other things that could suddenly go wrong.
What ultimately solved my fear of flying was exposure to very reliable information sources (logos and ethos), positive personal experience (pathos), and a more relaxed philosophy of life that I've developed over the last few years.
The biggest source of information for me has been my involvement with flight simulations as a hobby – and I don't mean games where you just fly, shoot things, or do barrel rolls on any plane you want – but serious flight simulator software worth several hundred dollars and requiring dozens of hours of reading and training to use properly, in order to follow real procedures that passenger planes carry out. It's been both a rewarding and eye-opening experience – appreciating how a plane works as a complete system where every part makes sense is very different than seeing it as a big pile of engines, wings, and all sorts of moving bits flying through the sky. I came to appreciate how intelligently everything on an airplane is designed, how many backups and special procedures there are should anything go wrong, and how something truly bad happening on an airplane – while still totally possible – required an extremely unlikely combination of many things going wrong at the same time. I gained a lot of respect for people who work in aviation, learning the amount of human intelligence, training, and effort on the part of many individuals every moment that a passenger plane is in the sky. I learned to better understand what risk statistics mean. And ultimately, sometimes one just needs to accept that nothing you do – not even sitting at home in front of a computer – is without some sort of risk.
3) Think of a time when rhetoric misled you...
While not necessarily a bad thing, I had been once persuaded to buy something I regret a bit – it was a Wacom drawing tablet for my PC, worth a couple of hundred dollars. I am not an artist, but good marketing, peer pressure and a convenient opportunity conspired to make me buy it. A tablet is something that allows you to draw on a panel and have your drawings instantly transmitted into the computer, where they can be easily edited – which is a lot more flexible and convenient than a pencil. However, since I bought it, I hardly got to use it.
I happen to have many friends who work in graphics design and animation, who constantly tell me about their projects. I do occasionally draw too, but I am by no means good, nor have time to do it regularly. Still, hearing about all the interesting things they do has always got my imagination started – which I guess is a form of pathos, positive feeling of creative freedom; but also ethos – listening to people in the know talk about a tool they find to be very useful, and wanting one yourself so you could be more like them.
Looking at tech descriptions and reviews of the tablet, I only became more intrigued – the youtube videos promoting it were really well-designed, the features looked very good, and all of it was written in a techy language that, in a strange way, was very appealing and made the tablet sound like an extremely useful thing for anyone to have. I suppose this is a sort of logos to the argument – a slightly deceptive but well-composed description of something can definitely make a product seem like a necessity, not just a neat toy.
Finally when I went to Future Shop one day, they had a sale on these tablets – it was only something like 10%, but that was enough to seal the deal for me by putting a thought into my mind: “if not now, when?” So, I bought it and it has been collecting dust on my desk for two years since. Yes, a Wacom tablet really is a very neat piece of tech, but one that I'd rather not have spent my hard-earned cash on. But I'm sure this is a very common story, one that many tech-savvy people can relate to!
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PS - I don't encourage you to imitate me - there are many more ways of doing well with your journals. What I want you to pay attention to is mostly a) the fact I've incorporated structure and just a little bit of thinking along the lines of rhetorical concepts and values; and b) the fact that I've kept it relatively casual and personal, without stressing too much over academic tone. I think keeping those two things in mind will help you quite a bit with this and future journals.
Good luck!
-G.R.
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