¡VIVA PRESIDENTE CHAVEZ! OR DON'T!

A Rhetorical Campaign

Introduction

    Who's gonna be there for you when the room you were assigned to for your club is horribly suited? Who's gonna be there for you when your favorite frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwich is slightly thawed when lunch arrives? Who is gonna be there for you when the "back-in-my-day" days only left behind their bad parts for the future? Who is gonna analyze the rhetoric of my campaign? It's me, I am. 
Welcome to PRESIDENTE CHAVEZ'S grand display of the inner mechanisms of my campaign. 

Firstly, what is rhetoric? When we think of rhetoric, often we think of the example of "it was a rhetorical question." A common phrase used when we asked a question more for ourselves than our audience. Rhetoric is used by all sorts of people, whether you know the meaning of the word or not, even you have used it. Things like hyperboles, similes, metaphors, analogies.. they're all rhetoric. Rhetoric is the art of speech, whatever that may mean to you. It is the charisma, the credibility, and the ability to sway the audience to your side, or perhaps maybe even against the other face of the coin? Most commonly used by politicians in order to control their crowd; the right kind of crowd that won't be dawning pitchforks and torches against such heretical ideas. In our rhetoric class, we looked over these ideas and how politicians such as the JFK vs Nixon debate or the Buckley vs Baldwin debate utilized these tools to some level of effectiveness, we also ended up talking with a FE guest with a salesperson and activist background about how she convinces folks to vote through her past life of marketing tactics. 

The Campaign

With the challenge of three whole weeks to gain the votes of the students for my presidential campaign and a reason to compete, I was ready to prepare just about anything that'd get me ahead of the curve with my rivaling candidates. There were difficulties in seeing how I would spread my influence farther than just my upperclassmen friends, I needed more social ties. I needed to get acquainted with the strangers of the school as an introvert. It was incredibly lucky to have a class where I share the room with a mixed body of students from all grades. From there, I made sure there was an effort to expand my social web through natural conversations with the unacquainted students of the school and slowly connecting them all together, making sure that my name became more wide-spread around the building. I also pre-arranged a few members to help me with my campaign (who I will not name out of sake of privacy) that I greatly appreciate their aid in making my run no longer viewed as a joke amongst my schoolmates and something I was serious about. 

This is how I established my ethos. Ethos in its most simplest definition is establishing yourself as a credible figure, somebody you can perhaps relate to or believe to be proficient in their field (like a medical doctor talking about medicine). I wanted to have students tie their interests with mine in order to make me somebody they could trust and feel as though I have a more in-depth connection to them as a friend and as a potential candidate in their book. 

Secondly, I made sure to compile a mental list of what I believe student council and the school could do better in order to establish a sense of logos with the audience. Logos is backing your talk with experience, statistics, and often many other fancy numbers and charts in order to let the audience know you did your homework on the topic before stepping up to the big stand. You'll find that this mental list is shown apparent through my speech.

Thirdly, I'd like to make this one a surprise that you'll learn about later. For now, I'll discuss the contents of a video I had to compose for this action project before I let you enjoy the show.

My work comes in multiple forms of art; specifically the art of speech, the art of video, and lastly.. art in its most commonly interpreted sense. For my campaign, I had to compose a video primarily just for this action project as it did not actually come into play to sway my peers, along with a speech, a poster, and buttons that I handed out to students. Below you'll find the speech visualized through bits and pieces of footage recorded by me and my peers with the question of "What makes a school president?" in mind. The actual speech itself will be at the bottom for rhetorical analysis later. Enjoy.

Speech

To experiment, to create through the pursuit of imagination, to fuel the fire of a student’s mind and body, to these degrees we are bound to the same school through the desire of expression. 

GCE is liable to change and always has from the very beginning. The visionary who has created this foundation for a unique educational experience structured it in a way that is ever changing to the world around. For example, if you asked your teacher how the course was run two or three years ago, they’d probably tell you it was run quite differently than right now. 

We’ve reached a point where we are going to be approaching a significant amount of changes as a community. Most importantly, moving into a whole new building sometime in November. 

There will be changes we do not agree with as a student body in this building, concerns and demands that want to be voiced to the school.

For the past few years, student council has been a mystery to those outside of the select few. The lack of transparency and communication is something that needs to be addressed immediately. Without the ability to properly share and collect the voice of the student body, we will struggle more than we need to in the new space.

I have discussed with fellow students how I would plan to most effectively utilize my presidential role to make sure our school’s staff team knows what to focus on changing in our new space through our collective voices. Through this effort, I believe both the bonds of student and staff may be strengthened.

If you vote me for president, I will make sure to involve the student council in organizing spaces for the student body to voice their concerns and interests to our team, along with making sure to provide insight into our progress as we move forward as a whole. 

Analysis

I'd like to bring it back to when I brought up that I'd be using that mental list in the video, which is shown through the fifth paragraph of the speech where I critique the student council on certain flaws then begin to follow up in the next paragraph by referring to my talks with other students on what they'd expect out of their president to show that I am willing to be transparent with the audience. I also address the new location being an issue, as it is only natural to find the flaws rather than the charm of a new space relatively quickly. 

Next we'll be taking a look at more subtle rhetorical devices. I use one at the very beginning called an "anaphora", which is repeating the same word(s) at the beginning of phrases or sentences. I repeat the word "to" in order to emphasize a more poetic introduction to my speech, following with I hoped to be inspirational phrases after. This is especially useful in a video as I could already visualize how I was going to produce this sentence structure in order to fit this political agenda.

Another sneaky tool of rhetoric is using a "hyperbole". This is very commonly used in today's politics as the entire concept of a hyperbole is to exaggerate a point in order to get it across the audience in a very strong matter, often to extremes that aren't exactly true or in as desperate of an image they're painted in. In my speech, I made sure to heavily lean towards the idea that student council is this crumbling idea that needs action immediately. The student council hasn't exactly been useful for the past few years that I can recall my time at GCE but the school has run fine without it as it isn't a supporting pillar of the community. I would like to make it to that point though where it feels like a strong support for the school, though I decided that I wanted to make the council look more important than it currently was to the audience. 

There were a few other additional rhetorical tools even more subtle in the form of where and how these clips are organized, specifically addressing the student interviews where I talked one on one with selected students while positioning myself as a listener to the interviewee through my body posture which is relaxed yet focused in order to best get the idea across that although I am running for student president, it is a reminder that I am still a student and not just a face for the campaign. 

This would be a persona of sorts, which is similar to wearing a metaphorical mask around certain crowds you hang around with. Although it is not there physically, you know another part of you exists mentally. This is something we all do on a day-to-day basis to fit the standards placed in our lives by the world around. It is also something we can use for politics to best find the face for your crowd. I recognized that my audience was students, so I made sure to identify with them through these subtle implications used through my clothing and posture. 

Conclusion

This has honestly been my biggest project I've done for this school due to my investment in the political campaign and trying to make it the best that I could for GCE. To say this was a lone effort is laughable. My friends supported me in so many ways that kept me fired up since I had people that were counting on me to push through. I had my family with their endless support through the entire thing once they saw this was more than just a little project for me. My mother helped me cut out the little printed pieces of paper for my buttons and clipped them together, my aunt made T-shirts for my campaign without me asking or expecting that to be available to me, and my cousin who's got a degree in political science helped me get into the mindset of a politician making sure I was ready to tackle the debate and speech. The amount of encouragement and overall support that grew from the student body around my campaign was something I hadn't the pleasure to enjoy until now. Lastly, to wrap up this conclusion I want to send my appreciation to the patient teacher that could see this wasn't just a project for a grade, but something much more. 

And that's what we call Pathos - appealing to the audience's emotion.

Thank you for reading.

A Step Ahead

A Step Ahead

In our design and engineering class, we took a dive into the mindset of a designer, how we approach a certain audience with our designs, and the best process to approach it from. This project revolves around the concept of designing a tool specifically for the elderly interested in gardening. There is a designing challenge in our audience in which the uniqueness comes from their gradually decreasing ability to do things that only an able-bodied young person can. This includes their senses such as hearing and seeing, body strength, and sometimes even cost. In doing our research on our audience, we learned a designer's approach to making the best design possible through something called empathy. Empathy is understanding and addressing the problem directly rather than attempting to lower their expectations on what the world or they could do for themselves. In terms of applying it to an action project, it connects to us and our audience. We don’t understand their problem, but we also just can’t volunteer to help out every old person in the world directly in order to solve that. We did research on common problems with age, and I personally interviewed an elderly gardener to help with the action project. In terms of mathematics, we looked into primarily geometry and the types of tools there are in its most basic functions. Without further ado, below you will learn about the creation of a weed puller called Clawforde, made through the efforts of me and my partner.

A Word From The Audience

We gathered a fair amount of experience to prepare for this action project beforehand, having gone to home depot as a class to observe tools and talk to staff, I interviewed an elderly woman who I frequently volunteer to help tend to her gardens, and we talked with a designer guest who explained the thorough process of her approaches on our designs and how she goes about her own. In my experience, I had already heard a few complaints about the designs of tools while working around my interviewee's garden so designing this tool felt very familiar to me, especially with the already given advantage of personally knowing my targeted audience, not just on a social aspect, but on the technical side as well. I noted the biggest takeaways from the answers I had received from my interviewee and have honed in on what I believe would make for an interesting design, such as: 

1. Tools being cheap and effective is always nice, don’t go as far as full plastic though.

2. Elderly have a lot more strength in their legs than their arms, so it wouldn’t be the worst idea to focus on utilizing that.

3. Heavy tools are ridiculously impossible to utilize. Not only is this coming from the interview, but it’s also something I overheard happening with an employee and customer at the Home Depot

These are the three key points that I had taken away from my interview, I especially found the leg power being interesting to me. It became the main focus point of a unique weed puller that still utilized the ability to perform the task manually, while requiring a lot less effort than current day tool designs.

Speaking of current day tool designs, me and my partner had taken a look at a few and noted the flaws or general notes that were observed so that we knew what to work around or build on. 

Firstly, the designs aren’t cheaply made based on observation, and for the most part they can almost somewhat reliably pass off to the elderly audience without much issues.

- All weed pullers are designed to utilize the foot from the examples I’ve seen.

- A weed puller designed with purely plastic is an ineffective tool based on how much pressure is constantly applied to make it work.

- Their handles are primarily made in only one size with no customization.

The Clawforde Experience

We collected the general ups and downs of these experiences and we created a tool designed to surpass all of the others in its form of design. Complete with colorized hand-drawn visuals, instructions, and the mathematics of our tool, my partner and I are excited to introduce and show you what the Clawforde experience is all about.

Conclusion

Creating the perfect tool is difficult for any designer, nonetheless if it's a high schooler composing one for just a school project. Does that mean there was little to no effort, no heart, no love put into this design? I don't think so. Although there are a few flaws here and there with our design that we have recognized and noted, we've created a tool to a degree we find worthy of being in one's garden. A few other pieces of feedback for anyone else that participates in this action project is this:

- Simplicity is best. Explaining a complex tool will often lose your audience unless you have something like a prototype or a comparison to be made to an already existing tool.

- Always remember your audience and focus. For this project, our audience was the elderly and our focus was designing a tool for gardening. Can you imagine your tool being used in a garden or does it feel more like a farm tool? 

That'll wrap my conclusion up on this unit, overall I found it quite fun to participate and perform in with my partner and interviewees. Thank you for reading.