Dr.

Leslie Bruce
Department of English, Comparative Literature, and Linguistics
California State University, Fullerton
P.O. Box 34080
Fullerton, CA 92834-9480

Dr. Leslie Bruce,
This semester I have been striving to improve my critical thinking, reading, and writing
experiences. In order to quantify or demonstrate these improvements, six student learning outcomes
(SLOs) have been placed. The portfolio that I am arranging together will then have one original work, a
peer review of the work, a completely revised version of the work, and finally a peer review I have
written for a fellow student. I chose my proposal: Geological gas reappraisal and connection of Delphic
Oracle to demonstrate that I have fulfilled five of the SLOs and a peer review to complete the final one. I
will in this letter specifically identify the SLOs in my writing.
To write formally and informally, in and out of class, for a variety of audiences and purposes is
the first SLO. The proposal completes this SLO, because it is a formal writing to the NSF asking for grant
money to complete research. This document was written in and out of class. I also wrote it knowing that
the NSF was my target audience, but keeping in mind that Dr. Bruce is ultimately my real audience.
The proposal also meets or fulfills the second SLO, which is to find, evaluate, select, synthesize,
organize, ethically site, and present information form a variety of sources appropriate to their disciplines.
If you look at the fifth paragraph in the completely revised proposal, the first two sentences show this
SLO. In these sentences I have taken information form Etiope, rewritten it in my own words, and then
cited it, giving credit to Etiope. Although these specific examples are only form one source, this source
was gathered from different sources itself.
The third SLO is to compare, contrast, and synthesize carefully and objectively the relative merits
of alternative or opposing arguments, research, and/or methods. The proposal that I wrote deals with
opposing ideas. The second paragraph of the completely revised proposal does compare and contrast the
different theorys that could have affected the oracles visions. It shows how one previous theory by
Piccardi states that ethylene was the culprite that gave her the visions but the new research disagrees and
will try to re-evaluate the idea.
Before writing my proposal I used a storyboard method of organizing my thoughts. In this
method I wrote different general ideas and topics into different flash cards and then arranged them in
different order to see how I would organize my proposal. In my revised proposal I actually changed one
of the topics/ideas, which was paragraph the third paragraph of the originally turned in proposal and
moved it to the very end of the proposal. This organization fulfills the fourth SLO which is to organize
ones thoughts and communicate them clearly and persuasively to address a rhetorical situation.
The fifth SLO deals with the ability to recognize, evaluate, and employ the features and contexts
of language and design that express and influence meaning and that demonstrate sensitivity to gender and
cultural differences. If you look at the first sentence on the third paragraph of my originally submitted
proposal, you see that my sentence has a very weak verb. In the new and revised proposal I have changed
the verb and the whole sentence, creating a more sophisticated tone as well as conveying an outstanding
control of language. The revised sentence is the first sentence of the last paragraph of the revised
proposal.
To fulfill the sixth and final SLO I included in my portfolio a peer review from my proposal and
also a review that I did for another students work in the class. The sixth SLO is to improve ones own and
others writing through the assessment and critique of written works. As you can see in the review that
Robert gave me, he mentioned that I should maybe add subheadings to help organize the proposal. I
agreed with his assessment and decided to add subheading in my final submission to help guide the
reader. I also did a peer review on Edweiens group and emphasized that they should maybe split the last
paragraph to help make it easier to read. So in conclusion I believe that I have met the all the SLOs
needed for this portfolio and the works submitted demonstrate my improvements.
Sincerely,
Edwardo A. Gonzalez