My Reflection on Persuasion
Reflective essay – Persuasion
I remember the day in sixth grade when we wrote letters to Santa. We wrote about what we wanted for Christmas, and gave three reasons that explained why we should have it. We were trying to persuade Santa that we deserved the Christmas gift of our choice. After writing that letter, every time someone mentioned persuasion, I thought back to the letter. I thought that I had learned everything there is to learn about persuasion from writing that letter. After all, what could be more of a learning experience than trying to convince Santa to build me an international space station, and then having the teacher tell me it was very persuasive? After reading and analyzing William Shakespeare’s play, “The Tragedy of Macbeth”, I now realize that yet again, I understand so much more about persuasion than I used to. This unit in Language Arts 9 definitely did wonders to teach me about persuasion. Through learning about “The Tragedy of Macbeth”, I have come to understand, better, a whole new perspective, or angle, of what persuasion is. No longer is it a fuzzy idea of a letter to Santa in my head. I have discovered that persuasion is, in fact, a very powerful tool that can help people to achieve many things, both good and bad, and have learned the tips and tricks that make persuasion more effective.
Persuasion is convincing others to do what you think. It is a “[p]rocess aimed at changing a person's (or a group's) attitude or behavior toward some event, idea, object, or other person(s)...to convey information, feelings, or reasoning, or a combination of them”. Before reading Macbeth, I thought that this was all there was to persuasion. I did not realize that to fully comprehend a definition or idea, I could not just turn to a dictionary for the answer, but had to explore, through different situations and experiences, the significance and effects of persuasion. As a result, I thought that persuasion was simply convincing, to get you what you
I remember the day in sixth grade when we wrote letters to Santa. We wrote about what we wanted for Christmas, and gave three reasons that explained why we should have it. We were trying to persuade Santa that we deserved the Christmas gift of our choice. After writing that letter, every time someone mentioned persuasion, I thought back to the letter. I thought that I had learned everything there is to learn about persuasion from writing that letter. After all, what could be more of a learning experience than trying to convince Santa to build me an international space station, and then having the teacher tell me it was very persuasive? After reading and analyzing William Shakespeare’s play, “The Tragedy of Macbeth”, I now realize that yet again, I understand so much more about persuasion than I used to. This unit in Language Arts 9 definitely did wonders to teach me about persuasion. Through learning about “The Tragedy of Macbeth”, I have come to understand, better, a whole new perspective, or angle, of what persuasion is. No longer is it a fuzzy idea of a letter to Santa in my head. I have discovered that persuasion is, in fact, a very powerful tool that can help people to achieve many things, both good and bad, and have learned the tips and tricks that make persuasion more effective.
Persuasion is convincing others to do what you think. It is a “[p]rocess aimed at changing a person's (or a group's) attitude or behavior toward some event, idea, object, or other person(s)...to convey information, feelings, or reasoning, or a combination of them”. Before reading Macbeth, I thought that this was all there was to persuasion. I did not realize that to fully comprehend a definition or idea, I could not just turn to a dictionary for the answer, but had to explore, through different situations and experiences, the significance and effects of persuasion. As a result, I thought that persuasion was simply convincing, to get you what you