At the start of the quarter, my ideal citizen was a high school girl. She was involved in many things, from cheerleading to volunteering. For books, she liked the classics and a few more modern books. Her music came all from the top 40 list. She lives in an affluent suburb and has a normal nuclear family and her parents are very successful. In short, I gave my ideal citizen all the advantages in life but she also tries to give back.

My new ideal citizen is one who has faced hardships. She will really know the kind of problems that face the world and she will use this knowledge to help her better it. She will not listen to popular music or watch popular shows because she doesn't fit the standard mold. She will not care what others think of her.

I changed my ideal citizen because I thought more about how normal does not mean ideal and often it isn't. The normal person doesn't really help the world much. My first ideal citizen would do some volunteering but I don't think she would cause any real long lasting change in the world. By not being normal, my new ideal citizen can really shake things and get things changed.

I've learned a lot about writing and research through this course. I had never written an analytical essay before like we had to. I've learned that rhetoric is a powerful force and I need to pay more attention to it otherwise, I will be blindly influenced. I can also use the rhetoric to my advantage. So in conclusion, we need to critically think about the issues that surround us, otherwise we will fall into the normal category and be mindless pawns. If we do not critically think, then we will never be able to effectively be activists.