Alexander Brooks 

Final Overview of My Year’s Work

Understand and use print and digital technologies to address a range of audiences.

    In my final project of presenting information in two genres, I purposely chose to use a visual PowerPoint presentation with audio files and a taped interview, to fully connect with my audience. I was unable to read or refer to information in my PowerPoint.  I, therefore, created audio files with a calm woman’s voice to convey the important information.  I also was sure to include many visual images in my slides.  In this way, the audience could connect with the subject of jazz and get a flavor of what it was like to be part of a jazz event.  I even purposely chose a dark, black background to convey the fact that jazz is played at night in jazz clubs.  As you can see, technology played a crucial role in helping me to effectively reach my audience. Finally, I felt bad that due to time constraints I wasn’t able to share my interview with my Uncle Hawk who was both a Jazz musician for 30 years and an activist.  However, I did offer to provide this interview to anyone who wanted to hear it.

Locate research sources (including academic journal articles, magazines, and newspaper articles) in the library’s databases or archives and on the Internet and evaluate them for credibility, accuracy, timeliness, and bias.

In both the Source-Based Essay paper, and the Inquiry-Based Research paper, I located research sources in the library’s database or archives and on the internet and evaluated them for credibility, accuracy, timeliness, and bias.  The course taught me to use rhetorical analysis to fully evaluate the credibility and the effectiveness of each author.  As I dug deeply into my sources, I got a  strong informational base for my final project. In addition, I gained insight into the groups of people who would be open to receiving and understanding such information. Also, this helped me adapt my material to meet the needs of my class audience. As I progressed through the process, I became more adept at changing the material and format to effectively present it.

Compose texts that integrate your stance with appropriate sources using strategies such as summary, critical analysis, interpretation, synthesis, and argumentation.

In all three submissions, I learned to integrate my stance with appropriate sources. I used summary, critical analysis, interpretation, synthesis, and argumentation to provide a rationale as to how jazz could withstand its difficult beginnings to ultimately become the voice of the Civil Rights Movement.  I started from the beginning of jazz and explained how it was able to survive severe racism, as well as attempts by racist whites to steal it and discredit black jazz. Ultimately jazz cannot be stopped and gained tremendous popularity not only among blacks but in white mainstream society.  During the 1930s and 1940s, swing jazz became the most popular music in the world, and white and black musicians gained equal notoriety However, after the Harlem Renaissance and World War II, Bebop Jazz emerged. The major difference between this and swing is that the black musicians no longer wanted to produce music to placate white mainstream society.  Instead, they wanted music that connected to black heritage and could serve as a voice for the black downtrodden and ultimately the Civil Rights Movement.  Bebop with its atonal sound and sudden, rhythmic shifts were perfect for connecting with the pain of the black people. It still is today.  I could tell that when I was presenting to the class my diverse audience could connect with the subject matter that I was presenting.  I was thrilled that I was asked some questions about the subject by my audience.  I truly enjoyed presenting and going through the process of rhetorical analysis in early papers that led to me being able to do so.  Rhetorical analysis truly taught me to recognize that I had an audience and how other authors were able to gain an audience’s attention through various techniques in their writing.  I found these insights important when I went about crafting my papers and final PowerPoint presentation. Overall, I want to thank you for helping me improve my writing.  I feel that what I have learned in this class will make it easier for me to write papers and do presentations in the future. Thank you!