McKenzee Lilley

Professor Moore

ENGL 1302.08

4 May 2017

Portfolio Reflective Essay

Communication is a key factor in your everyday life. If you can not communicate, then

what can you do? Throughout life communication will be the most effective way to do things.

My Composition 2 class, taught by Professor Moore, has taught me a lot about communication.

We wrote three different major essays, several academic responses, and peer reviewed other class

mates papers which not only taught us writing, but communication was taught among those also.

I learned communication when I was younger like yes, no, mom, and dad, but not until college in

Composition 2 did I learn about fallacies, a rhetorical analysis, and causal arguments. I am

reflecting back on this course as a whole and it taught me many things about communication that

I will carry for a lifetime.

My rhetorical analysis taught me a lot and was probably the most difficult paper to write.

Rhetorical analysis papers are hard for me to analyze because it is difficult for me to see it in the

way it needs to be seen. The paper and my instructor taught me how to analyze better and see the

message it is trying to give, not just the big picture. I wrote my rhetorical analysis over Franklin

D. Roosevelts Pearl Harbor speech. I analyzed that he not only was trying to get the message

across that Hawaii had been attacked by Japan, but that it had not destroyed the American heart.

Being a teacher for the day was a good way to learn. It was a group project, and I love working

in groups. We got fallacies assigned to us as what we had to teach, and when we saw the word

fallacies all of our faces went blank. None of my group member nor I knew what a fallacy was. I
now know a fallacy is a mistake belief or false argument. There are many different types of

fallacies also. Being a teacher for the day helped me learn communication by presenting in front

of the class, and teaching a certain topic to a class so they can learn it. My causal argument was

my favorite paper to write. I wrote about a topic that had meaning to me which was

discrimination against homosexuals. It is a hard topic to write about, but it taught me to

communicate effectively while arguing a point. Discrimination against gay people is a social

issue right now, and by expressing the problems it causes I ended up purposing n idea on how to

fix it. My causal argument helped me with paper arguments that I know I will need in the future.

These are only a few papers that I wrote throughout the semester, but I felt as though

these papers helped me the most with communication. Communication is something I will need

for the rest of my life for academics and outside of academics. My rhetorical analysis, teacher for

the day, and causal argument helped me the most with communication because they gave me

help in area I was struggling in. My rhetorical analysis helped me the most and I am thankful I

was able to learn how to analyze something and not just see the big picture. Lastly, I want to

thank my professor for helping me learn about all these things in class and giving me the things I

need in the future to be more successful and knowledgeable.