Mariana Haddad

UWRT 1102

Final Portfolio Essay

1102 has been a journey. But not one of those journeys that you cruse through and

did not pay attention to the details. This was a growing experience, not only

academically but also personally. When I started this semester I was sad, I missed

my family, my country was getting worse and I felt guilty I was living in the US with

no worries. There are such terrible things in the world, violence, human trafficking

and wars and I felt useless to all these issues. So, as the semester progressed I

found myself in a place where I felt I could help a little. But how? If you may ask, by

raising awareness on human trafficking in Charlotte, NC. And this is what

eventually became my Inquiry Project. I started considering this horrible crime and

decided to be the voice of it, because even though I will not pursue this beyond this

class at least the couple people that were in my class I have impacted and that

means a lot.

Once I found what interested me I had to research it, because I am a curious

person just like James Melcer explains a curious person doesnt become

frustrated when they encounter a task they are not capable of accomplishing. They

seek to understand how. I needed to understand how I could help and what I could

do to prevent it. I got to the point that I had the knowledge but what I needed to

learn how to convey the message, because its not what you say but how you say it
or not what you write but how you write, after all this is a writing course. I learned

multiple things, but I learned three key things for my writing process that will stick

with me in the future. The first is that even though you are the best writer on the

Earth you still need peer review. But the important part of peer review is knowing

how to do it properly. Richard Straud says Youre not a teacher. Youre not a

cruise missile. Youre not the writer; you are the reader. And this is how we must

act when faced with a peer paper. We need to know how much criticism is too

much, and I learned this in this course through numerous workshops. The second

thing I learned was that first drafts will never be the best piece of writing you have

done. Anne Lamott explains her biggest fear that people would find my first draft

before I could rewrite it., but this shows that even published/professional writer

dont make perfect drafts, so, why should we? Revisiting you work is part of the

process. And the third thing is that when you want to give a message it must be in

the right genre or else it will lose it purpose. What surprised me was the number of

genres that exist and that make it easier to get a point across, like how Kerry Dirk

says Q: What do you get when you rewind a country song? A: You get your wife

back, your job back, your dog back ... This example shows that only the audience

that it is intended will understand said joke. In country music they say repeatedly

how they have lost their dog, wife, etc, so the joke is that by rewinding it you could

get it back. If you had never listened to a country song you would be very lost in

this joke. Reason for which when you plan on writing a piece it is important to know

the audience you want to target or else the message will not come across. These

ideas learned in this course will benefit my writing in the future writing. As well as

adopting these ideas I have embraced three key concepts critical reading: by
reading assigned articles and blogging my opinion based of the information given,

composing process: by allowing myself to receive feedback from my peers to

complete my writing process, and finally curiosity and inquiry: by researching about

a couple of topics until I found what really made me curious. Most of these

concepts where easy to grasp, not only the 3 mentioned, because I had previously

taken 1101 at UNCC.

Once I had more knowledge on how to write everything I started designing my e-

Portfolio. I decided to do it all in black and white to go in harmony with the subject

of my Inquiry Project which is Human Trafficking. I believe it would be a little

sadder if it carried these tones instead of bright cheerful colors. The modes of

communication that I used the most were spatial, because I decided to place

specific titles bigger so it would easier to understand where you stood and subtitles

so it could be easily identified without even reading the piece, and visual because

not only do I have images on my blog page I have also created a gallery of pictures

that help show the horrible crime that is human trafficking, as well as the color

tones. Later after having a coherent theme across my e-Portfolio it was easier to

incorporate the piece I had worked on throughout the semester. First, I created a

major assignments tab that contains my most extensive work and most of the

research done for my Inquiry Project. And second a writers artifacts tab that

englobes the rest of my journey in the semester. My first major assignment was the

Midterm Reflection, which was incorporated because this is a summary of how I

did in the first half of the semester, this allowed me to learn from my mistakes and

improve them for the second half of the semester. Then on the rest of my pieces
under this category start being about Human Trafficking. My developing curiosity

essay was originally about something completely different. When I first wrote it I

had no idea what I wanted to talk about and my professor said on my midterm

feedback that it needed substantial revision or even complete re-writing (Ingram,

2017), so I decided to write it on my current topic. After that the annotated

bibliography was assigned which consisted of a collection of sources with specific

reason about why they contribute to your project. As I researched I found Rachel

Browns article that said, Human trafficking is very big in Charlotte, NC, and there

is very little information being taught about it. which helped me narrow down my

topic and made me realize that I wanted to raise awareness as I said at the

beginning. So, now what was left was to find two genres where I could express my

message of awareness. My Multi-Genre Project reflection says I chose drawing a

comic strip that could be posted on Facebook, Instagram or even twitter, which

shows how easy it is to get into this business. And my second piece is a speech

created for high school students to hear and reflect on how if they are not careful

they could end up as victims. The reason I chose these genres were because it

was the easiest way I could reach the young audience that I wanted. If I would

have chosen something like a blog, even though its online, I dont think people

would randomly stumble upon this information. I want people to stumble upon it on

Facebook or Instagram. For my writers artifact tab most of what I added were

pieces that are part of a big process, for example the feedback page. In this one I

incorporated my draft that was corrected by my peer Lia Clark where she said,

Really well written and very interesting topic! This comment may seem irrelevant

or general but to me it meant encouragement and it gave me faith to keep of

improving it. This is what I talked about before, how being a good peer reviewer will

help and motivate students at the same time. to this page I also added my midterm

feedback. The page after that is titled make up artifact, and for this category I

chose to re-write an assignment that I hadnt completed properly. It was a mini

research report where we had to find something new to read and I chose an

optional book from my engineering class as base of my assignment. Ms Ingram

explained that this was not what the assignment was asking for so I re-wrote it with

a new interesting article as base. For my wild card tab I included my Whole Life

Concept paper from my engineering class. The reason I chose this one was

because it allowed me to compare two very different types of writing and non-the

less written by the same author, me. The WLCP is written in a more rigid and

analytical way because it talks about my plans for the future as an engineer in 3, 5

and 10 years. In 1102 the writing is rather creative and research based. On the

notebook artifact tab I included my Reader Response Letter 4, in which for the first

time I established what the thesis statement for my project the purpose of my

multi-genre project I that due to the lack of information on Human Trafficking it is

becoming more common, especially in Charlotte, NC. And my second artifact was

a Dear Reader letter that says I will change my topic and why. This was a crucial

moment in the semester when I decided human trafficking is the topic of my

project. Lastly under the category of writers artifacts we have process artifacts. I

chose the document were I first recorded my possible thesis statements, where I

ended up choosing the last one for my final, and a post secret draft that made me

realize that having post secret as my topic would not be quantifiable, so I could not

measure it. Both pieces were part of my process.

The last tab I have not yet mentioned is my blog tab. Throughout the semester blog

posts were assigned and keep on the webpage to have at hand. Before 1102 I was

not 100% on having peers read over my work and comment on it but seeing how it

has benefited me I understand it its necessary It is more than important to have a

different pair of eyes to read your work for it to be spotless. Sometimes when you

are not the writer you can spot errors faster and give constructive criticism to the

author.

This collection of pieces has allowed me to learn about key concepts, modes of

communication, human trafficking and audience. Reason for which they are all

special and have earned their place on this e-Portfolio. I am proud of my semesters

work. According to the grading scale on the syllabus I should get an A, because I

have counted the number of quotations as well as explained their importance, I

have illustrated my writing processes and most importantly I have corrected every

assignment or re-wrote it in order to have the A. I will take so much from this

semester.