Are All Emotions Necessary?

Upon my return to the United States, I enrolled in a college-level English course at community college to better prepare for the UCI writing exam. Typically, Freshmen take the placement exam in May but I was given the chance to test in the summer due to my absence in Thailand. The theme of my English 101 course was "Happiness" and we created a short book similar to this course's Final Portfolio. My book was focused on the different emotions and I debated whether or not all emotions should exist.

Once again, the theme of this WR39B course has been "Dystopia," and we spent about half the course focusing on Lois Lowry's The Giver (1993) in which a dystopian society strips members of their emotions and ability to make significant choices. Coincidentally, many of my pieces from the English 101 course concur with my RA Essay in WR39B. My Rhetorical Analysis essay was titled "No Choices, No Mistakes, No Pain: Lack of Power in The Giver," in which I analyzed the different levels of oppression in the novel. Therefore, I found a few pages appropriate to include in this Final Portfolio since they both act as an updated-precursor of my writing before WR39B and add value to the theme explored in my RA.  

In this class, I learned that using first-person pronouns is important because it makes writings more personal and effective. My professor also pointed out that although my theses in many essays were fine, I had  "a mathematical problem" when it came to writing. As addressed in the commentary of my AP Literature essay, I would often refer to people as "they/them" (plural) only to later use terms such as "itself/oneself" (singular) and vice versa.

As evident in the excerpts from my book, this inconsistency in quantity-relation was never repeated and I began to use first-person pronouns in assignments. The focus of my English 101 course was more shifted toward writing argumentative essays instead of constructing rhetorical analysis papers which is why I contribute more of my opinions than I drew on articles and their author's appeals. However, I wish I would have used the articles more wisely because they do not necessarily act as secondary sources or advance my argument. I used the articles as a way to "kick-off" my opinions which, although not catastrophic, could have been improved on.