Ryan Swenson

“Worst Rhetoric Experience”

            My junior year I was in a language and composition class, and we started a topic of persuasive rhetoric. I honestly still have no clue what it is, but I had to analyze a bunch of writings, and then create my own piece of persuasive rhetoric. It doesn’t help too that I extremely disliked my teacher so I initially put forward my worst attitude toward the assignment itself. We had a few weeks to type the paper.

            Being the genious I am, I waited and waited and waited. Then soon enough it was the night before due date and we had a paper due. I wisely waited until it was past dark and started it when I should’ve been going to sleep. The sleep part didn’t really matter because it was high school and you can sleep through class everyday anyways. But here I was, 12 at night typing something I have no idea about. I scrapped together what looked like a formidable paper, but I knew it wasn’t going to get a good grade. I went to it first hour the next morning and turned it in. Knowing I probably got a D at best, I wasn’t really looking forward to it being graded.

            Fast forward a little less than a month to that same first hour class. The paper I completely forgot about was there on my desk. I wasn’t even nervous/scared/etc because that night when I typed it I knew it was going to be bad anways, so fuck it I figured. I got an F, and it was one of those papers that just had writing all over it and “helpful advice” on how I could have done it better. It wasn’t the end of the world though, because, just like in any other high school course, she gave out enough busy work throughout the semester where the “big” papers are just an above average assignment in the scheme of things.

            To this day, I still really have no clue what I even wrote about or what persuasive rhetoric is. I could definitely give an educated guess as to what it is, but I honestly am not too concerned that that will be relevant to me at any point of my life.

Oh and just for some more emphasis, I extremely disliked my English teacher that year.