Stimulating

An ordinary dictionary defines stimulating as something which excites one to action or encourages one to begin. I don't disagree with this definition but I feel that stimulating is a much more comprehensive word. A stimulant is something that triggers a response. To me ENC 1102 was a stimulant in of itself. I have learned more than I realize from class. It wasn't just regurgitating words from others and producing a paper like past classes. You really had to explore the terms and use your mind to analyze and relate them. I chose stimulating because to me this class was a mental workout.


Most literature is intended to be stimulating, authors want readers to think while reading. They are trying to evoke a response from them thus requiring a stimulant. Paul Aster's piece titled "Why I Write" exemplifies this. Through a series of stories Paul shares why he writes. Those stories are simply stimulants for him. They are what sparked his flame for writing. We all have reasons for why we write. I feel comfortable making the generalization that way more often than not, the rhetorical situation is not the only stimulant but the audience is as well. Bitzer, author of "The Rhetorical Situation" stabs at defining the term in a few ways. He concludes that rhetorical situation is simply the event that has caused you to write. You could also define rhetorical situation as the stimulant that caused you to start writing.


Not only has the class stimulated my brain to draw connections between literary concepts but it's going to continue to teach me. The basic concepts and skills acquired will "transfer" (as defined by "How People Learn") to my future classes. ENC 1102 has stimulated my brain to think more critically than ever. I learned alot of information as well as how to think analytically all of the time.