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Melissa Boyd

Prof. Intawiwat

English 111 44

4/27/2017

Final Reflection Letter

To start off I would like to say that I did indeed find this class very educational and I was

very satisfied with what I learned and accomplished while here this semester. I learned how to be

a better writer, how to use different wording and how to get the readers attention in many

situations throughout the writing. As I pronounce my work for the semester I will give in detail

what got me to be where I am right now with writing, myself as a writer, and why I believe my

writing as matured.

The I Believe essay was one of the first big assignments due in this class. This topic was

written literacy. This essay was new to me, as well as many others, and the topic was I believe.

Anything that I believe in I could write about. It could be serious, silly, or religious. I chose to

write the essay on laughter. The paper I wrote mainly explained that when things go wrong or

you are having a bad day, laughter is sometimes all you need to help you calm down and get you

through. It was meant to be read by any type audience, the purpose was to try and let the reader

see things in an alternative perspective when things are going wrong. That is something I firmly

believe in, I do it myself. In my essay, I honestly tried to do the best I could on it, but after

reading the draft the only thing that I needed to change was minor grammar fixes and in one

paragraph I started with the word So, which I changed.

In the same topic, one of the most interesting assignments that I had to do was a QFSD

on Hellen Keller. The reason I found this so interesting was for the fact that it has such an
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amazing lesson to it. Mainly it talked about when Hellen was a young girl she discovered

language and discovered the meaning of things, within seconds her whole world changed when

she made the connection between objects and names. The way she described that feeling in her

writing inspired me to be more open in my writing, if she could accomplish what she did then I

certainly can as well, there are no limits.

The second big assignment that was due was the Ethnography. This was in the

Oral/Visual topic. I particularly loved this section I got to research things that I am interested in.

The main purpose for doing the paper was to open my mind and just write about something that I

was apart of, or something that I enjoy and want more knowledge of. I chose to write about dog

lovers and the changes that undergo in humans when it comes to owning a dog, mentally and

physically. The audience could be anyone who enjoys dogs and would like more information

about what it is like and how you change as a person when you get a dog. I did not make any

final changes to it because when I wrote it I felt like it was a good paper, I spent a lot of time on

it and read it multiple times to make sure it sounded okay. I did not completely revise it, other

than changing words around in a sentence some.

My favorite assignment of this topic was the picture story. This is where the class spread

out throughout campus for the entire period and just mainly sat and observed, took notes and

evaluated the events taking place. The main purpose was to take a picture and using Ethos,

Logos, and Pathos we were to create a short dialogue story. This was for the visual part because

the story was based off the picture we took. The oral part was that we made up our own dialogue

using the rhetorical strategies from class, what grabs the attention of the reader, even though we

had no idea what was actually being said we used our creative minds and created a whole entire

new idea and setting that could have been going on. It was a new way of writing and taught me
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how I could connect anything together to make my own short narrative, it is what great writers

do.

The third major project was working on the E-portfolio. I was excited to get to work on

this assignment because I love technology, now that may be because I grew up with technology

all my life, but who knows? This project is where we started to build and create website for our

portfolio. I love designing and creating, so this was fun for me! I got to reflect on everything we

did in the semester and going back through to see how far I became was very interesting to me.

Other assignments that we worked on was the digital assignment with I really had a blast

with because I got to create a digital power point and make a timeline of my life and progression

through digital technology. It is just interesting to me how becoming literate in digital technology

ties into English, I learned that over any digital source pretty much you can read books, articles,

see pictures and analyze. Anything to do with reading you can do it on the internet or digital

device, it is another source to use when it comes to learning and using resources.

My fourth Major Project was the Zine. This was in the pop culture topic. For this project,

we had to create a magazine that required us to use many different skills. The purpose was to

reflect everything that we had been taught and apply it to this magazine. This is where the

Student Learning Outcome comes into play because everything we learned this semester went

into creating this magazine. I chose to do my magazine on beauty because I enjoy beauty

magazines over any other magazine. Throughout the magazine, I used written literacy skills

because I had to come up with and write articles about something to do with beauty, writing the

articles I kept in mind Ethos, Logos, and Pathos because that is where it matters, can I grab the

attention of the reader with one of these strategies? That was what I tried to do in everything that

I wrote. For the second topic, I reflected the use of rhetorical strategies in my writing and visual
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aid, I used known celebrities to bring people in, I used pictures so readers would have credibility,

they also had it with the reviews, and I used emotion as I talked about how great it has done for

them to buy my products, Logical placing of pictures and articles was used as well. For the

Digital Literacy topic, I reflected my knowledge because I was on the internet using technology

for English assignments, thus proving that I am literate in the digital world, I know how to create

a magazine and website based on prompts and writing. I used the last topic, Popular Culture in

my magazine by using people and things that are trending and well- known by almost everyone.

Through this last topic of popular culture, I believe the project made us use everything that we

have worked on throughout the semester in one piece. This project was to see if we understood

everything we went over in class and by completing these assignments and perfecting the

magazine in every aspect, it covers the entire semester. It shows an understanding with each

lesson we had. If I were asked to describe anything we learned I believe I could because of the

assignments and repetitive use kept the knowledge in my head and gave me a clear and better

insight.

Over all my experience in this class was amazing and I could not have asked for a better

outcome. I feel like I learned a lot of new things and walked out smarter than I was, thats for

sure. My writing skills I feel like improved the best because of the QFSD homework readings.

The gave examples of good writing and poor, they showed and gave examples of how to think

differently also. I believe those made a big difference in my performance. I believe my overall

performance in the class was shaded by the fact that I had some family issues and could not

make it to class, with that being said I do not think that hindered my ability to learn or do my

work any less because I am very self-disciplined when it comes to doing my work and putting

the extra work. I did work nonstop on my projects and assignments throughout the entire class,
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with that being said I believe I deserve at least an A. In all of my work I put forth the best effort I

could and I believe my work itself reflects that statement. I want to thank you for being an

amazing teacher and helping me out and for being so understanding about the situation I am in.