Madison Rowles

Suzanne Ingram
UWRT 1104
Final Portfolio Reflection Essay

Introduction
Throughout this entire semester, I can honestly say I have seen writing analyzed in ways I had
never seen it analyzed before. Along with this being my first semester in college, it was hard to make the
adjustment to college level writing, and learn how to balance 5 classes instead of just 4 like back in high
school. Now that the semester is coming to an end, it is exhilarating to see all of my hard work from the
past few months come together and displayed in my final E-portfolio. Now I have a digital record of all
my progress from this semester that can be used anytime I need it in any other course.
What I Learned
Taking this course has taught me think deeper into my writing. Its not just about writing for
yourself, you have to consider the audience that will be reading your writing. For example, in our
exploratory essays when we are describing a memory or vision from our mind it is important to use lots
of imagery to capture the reader. It feels like just yesterday I was walking across the stage at high
school graduation in sweltering 80-degree heat and uncomfortable 5 inch heels.... You really want to
give the reader a good picture in their mind of what that day was like. During my first draft of my
exploratory essay I had hardly any imagery included without even realizing it, so once pointed out it was
easy to go back and add it in. I could definitely tell a difference in my paper once I included it. I also
learned how to develop my writing deeper, as I stated in my chapter seven RRL, If you want to develop
strong abilities to communicate through writing, starting with personal expressive writing is a great
place to begin. This came to my attention after reading what the author had to say about how to be a
better writer, personal expressive writing requires you to think, question, to view and review, and then

experiment with language. All of the aspects the author listed is what makes the difference between an
okay writer and an amazing writer. When a person first begins writing, they most likely are not going to
be a professional right off the bat. Plus, having to write about a topic someone else assigns you would
be especially hard. The easiest way to begin the process of improving your writing is to start by writing
about something you are interested in, something that you enjoy writing about.
Revising and Editing
During this course we did a form of revising and editing that I had not previously done in other
classes from the past. We did peer editing in groups of threes and had each person revise our paper for
us so we could receive more feedback. There has been a lot of emphasis on peer editing in this class
unlike my previous classes, and I can tell my writing improved because of it. Peer editing has been a
great way for my papers to improve because others can catch the mistakes that I have missed. My peers
can help catch the small mistakes, like grammatical errors, and they can help improve the flow of the
essay by re-arranging the words around to form better sentences. During any paper that I peer edit if I
see a sentence that doesnt make sense I will leave a suggestion sentence to show them how it flows
better written a different way. A great example of this is when we did peer edits for this essay, our final
portfolio essay, while reading a peers work I came across a sentence that read I had put together the
best I could of different things I thought about or was interested in. After reading it a few times it is
clear that the sentence is a little muddy so I came up with a suggestion sentence to replace it, I put
together in the best way possible, everything I thought about or was interested in. It is great having a
fresh set of eyes to review our paper for us and help make it better. It was also helpful doing more than
just one rough draft, having multiple drafts improved my papers even more. Just like that saying practice
makes perfect, the more I practice my writing and edit it the more it can improve.

The 10 Key Concepts

Early in the semester we were shown 10 key concepts to writing that we worked on
developing over this entire semester. Of these 10 concepts there were 3 distinct ones that I had some
challenges with over the course of this class. The first one I had trouble with was stretching your comfort
zone, and I noticed I was having trouble with it once we began our blogs. I had never created a blog
before this class, it was hard to figure out how to use it and to force myself to become familiar with it,
since it would be such a big part of our grade. The next concept I struggled with was critical thinking. I
realized after reading the chapters for our reader response letters that I had no idea how to look deeper
into the readings. After we read the chapters, in order to properly respond to it, we are prompted a
series of questions like What passages from the text resonate with you and why? or How can you
relate to the text or to the author?. The first time reading these questions my initial reaction was
something like really! I dont know. I had never had to think that deep into my readings before and it
was clear I need to stretch my critical thinking skills. Since then, we have done many reader response
letters and now it is a piece of cake answering those questions. The last key concept that I struggled with
(like most people in the class probably) was rhetorical knowledge. It was hard in the beginning getting a
good grasp of what rhetorical knowledge is, and learning to develop it. Some of the key rhetorical
concepts are audience, purpose, context and genre which we have developed through writing and the
analysis of a variety of texts.
Major Artifacts
Exploratory Essay: This was one of the first major assignments at the start of the class and was
when I realized how different this class was going to be compared to my English classes in the past.
When given the assignment, we were told we could write about whatever we wanted; whatever our
mind wonders about. After just coming out of high school where they tell you exactly what to write

about, this was a bit daunting. No guidelines? No stipulations? Just write freely about what your mind
wanders to. It only seemed appropriate to begin the essay with a question, what makes me wonder?
and then just fully dive into all of the subjects of my wonder. ...seeing people on campus makes me
wonder how they managed to make schedules for everyone...Looking at all of the bricks on campus
makes me wonder how many bricks were used to create this magnificent campus I wonder about life I
wonder about how the internet works. I really enjoyed this assignment and my writing flowed easily
because I enjoyed what I was writing about.
Annotated Bibliography: This was another major assignment and also a smaller part of what
would eventually lead to our multi-genre project. After choosing a topic to research, I was able to gather
information and facts on my topic and put it into the form of an annotated bibliography. The topic I
chose to research was human emotions; more specifically, where human emotions come from and how
they can be affected negatively by technology. The information I gathered ranged all the way from parts
of the brain that deals with emotions all the way to psychiatrists views on where emotions come from.
During this research I learned so much about how the brain works, one website in particular gave me
lots of useful information. Heres great example from my annotated bibliography, The main part of the
brain that deals with anything to do with emotions is the cerebrum another structure within the brain
called the thymus is also very involved in our emotions. I gathered information from ten different
sources that could be online or print texts, and once I had enough information gathered I could continue
to the next step of the project.
Multi-Genre Project: For this assignment my first step was to pick an audience to target with the
information I had gathered. Once I knew who my target audience was, I was able to begin picking what
2-3 genre pieces I wanted to use to display the information. The options ranged anywhere from a power
point or flyer all the way to a poem or newspaper article. For my multi-genre project, my target
audience was parents of young kids whose emotional development could be potentially harmed by

technology. My first genre piece was an informational power point which I would show to parents to
inform them on the potential harm technology could pose on their childrens emotions. My second
genre piece was a childrens book which could be read to young kids to show them how too much
technology can affect them negatively and how to use it in moderation.
Blog: This was the very first project we were introduced to at the start of the class, which we
would continue to work on and improve the entire semester. We made our blogs so we could record all
of our modules and work from the semester in one place. Our blog posts were a way for us to respond
to articles we read or videos we watched, for example Peer review will be a great way for us to help
each other improve our writing and get a different perspective than our own. I think the video showed
how to properly peer review and is a great starting point for people that have never done one before. It
was a fun way for us to be creative, make it our own, and receive feedback on our work at the same
time. Our blogs were a small yet very important part of our entire online E-portfolio. I am very proud of
the blog I have created and put lots of work into, now I can say that I have made a blog before!
Something I wouldnt have been able to say before I took this class.
Midterm: Our midterm was the fifth post in our blog and the purpose of it was to analyze the
progress we had made with the ten key concepts. One of the key concepts that I think I have been
engaging with really well is inquiry and curiosity It really made me think deeper into what I wonder
about, and how things in the world work. I described how so far I felt like I had been engaging the most
with inquiry and curiosity because of the Exploratory Essay. I also talked about how I felt like I had been
expanding my comfort zone through the blog, because I had no experience with a blog before and I was
far outside my comfort zone when working with it. Lastly, the one key concept that I was still struggling
with was critical reflection. After reading a piece of text it was still hard for me to connect with it and
reflect and analyze what I had just read.

Process Artifacts
Exploratory Essay Draft: I chose this as one of my process works because it was one of the first
major assignments we did. I also chose it because there was a lot of growth in my exploratory essay
from my first draft all the way to my final draft, so it was a true work in progress when I first started it.
Because we were able to choose the topic ourselves, it was easy and fun to develop and improve it.
Multi-Genre Project (childrens book): I decided to use one of my multi-genre pieces as one of
my process works because I put a lot of time into the project. One of the pieces I did was a childrens
book, one of the first steps for the childrens book besides creating the story plot was to write the script
for the book. I typed up each page of my book in a word document so I could easily make changes to it
before I wrote inside of the book itself.
Final Portfolio Essay Draft: Seeing as how before this class I had never written a paper over four
pages, I thought it would just be crazy if I didnt include my eight-page Final Portfolio essay draft as one
of my process works. This is the longest paper I have ever written and I have put so much time and
effort into writing it. Not to mention it is also a huge factor in our final grade in this class! During the
peer editing we did for this paper I received a LOT of feedback and help. I thought my paper was in really
good shape, only to see when it was handed back to me all of the small errors I had made and random
ands that had no business being in a sentence. It was a true work in PROGESS and a great example of
the long process that is writing.
Feedback Artifacts
Annotated Bibliography Draft: I thought a great feedback article would be our annotated
bibliographies because before this class I had never done one before and was not familiar with the
format for it. After my first draft, there were many changes to be made. For example, my website
citations need more information like the author name and article title, and my column sizes were

unproportioned. So after we had our first drafts edited, I had a much better idea of how to create and
annotated bibliography.
RRL Chapter 21: The other feedback article I decided to use was one of my reader response
letters from a chapter out of our writing book. I chose this piece because of all the reader response
letters that we did this one really resonated with me and interested me. The chapter was about what is
a grade and how there are a lot of grey areas when it comes to grading students essays and writing.
Writers Notebook Artifacts
RRL Chapter 7: This is something that I pulled from all the work we have done throughout the
semester; I chose to use it because I felt like I did a good job on it, it gave me a lot of ideas on how to
improve my exploratory essay. I thought that this reader response letter was a great representation of
the work we have done throughout the semester.
Warm-up: Another piece I chose from my writers notebook was one of our warm-ups we did on
our high school writing. We were prompted a series of questions on how high school writing was for us
and how different it is from college writing. It also included questions about the environment we like to
write in and the challenges we face when writing.

Module Artifact
For the module artifact I decided to use module 5, which is blog post number 6 on our websites.
I chose this because I felt like it is a great example of the learning we did during this course. We really
learned how to think deeper about what we were writing about we learned audience awareness. If
there was one thing that I could say we used on almost every single assignment I would say audience

awareness. With any kind of writing, whether it was an essay or a reader response letter we had to be
fully aware of our audience and appeal to them through our writing.
Wild-card
For my Wild-Card I decided to use the very first blog post we did back in August. Within this blog
one thing that we had to write about was our writing rituals. What is something that we always do
when writing anything, whether it be personal writing or informational based writing. For me, I said that
one of my rituals is doing research. Whatever topic I am writing about I liked to be informed on, and
have facts to back up what I am saying. The other ritual I always do is look up synonyms for words, one
easy way to improve your paper is to not overuse certain words. So I get on google and look up
alternative words to keep my writing fresh and not repetitive.
Organization and Design
When planning out how I wanted to organize my website I was very careful arranging it into
what I believe is the most organized setup. The first thing I knew I wanted was all of my work divided
into sections with multiple tabs at the front page of the website so you could access each section with
ease. I decided that I wanted to keep my work grouped exactly the way it was in our rubric for the essay
(i.e. process work, feedback work, polished artifacts). If you want to see all of my polished artifacts from
the semester, just click on polished artifacts. If you want to see some of my process works, click on
process work, and same for the other sections as well. To me that seemed like the most logical way to
group my artifacts. My number one goal was to keep it simple and easy to access, bold headings at the
tops of pages and organized work. For myself personally, I love a great view. So for my website I include
background pictures of beautiful places around the world, which in a way reflects myself since I love to
travel. Throughout my paper I think the modes of communication most commonly used were visual,
linguistic and spatial. We all want to make our websites visually appealing with pictures and graphics

and there is a linguistic aspect with our words and writing throughout the many pages. Our strategic
placement of these pictures and words is the spatial mode of communication.
Conclusion
In conclusion, after reading over the grading scale on the syllabus the grade I think I deserve
would be an A. My paper is extremely thoughtfully arranged and very navigable. I colored all of the
quotes from my own writing in pink, and I colored all of the quotes from either peers or course materials
in purple so they can easily be distinguished. Total throughout my paper I used six quotes/examples
from my own writing and four quotes from outside sources/ peers which fully meets the criteria for an
A. I fully described my engagement with three of the key concepts and how I saw growth and
understanding in my use of them. In closing, I believe that the number one thing I gained from this
course that can easily be used in my other courses is the ability to think deeper, critical reading/ critical
reflection. The ability to read something and ask myself, why? Why is this important to me? What parts
of the text resonate with me? I know for a fact I will be reading for the rest of my life, whether I am
reading a childrens book to my kids as they go to bed, or reading about all the different types of skin
diseases as I work my way through physicians assistant school. This course is definitely more than just a
writing class! Its a life class, because reading and writing are life skills.