Dr.

Leslie Bruce
University Hall room 435
800 N. State College Boulevard
Fullerton, CA 92831

Dear Dr. Bruce,

All courses have objectives laid out in the syllabus that express the professors desire and hope
that their students will successfully take away from the course. Since first beginning ENG 301, I can
confidently say I've grown and improved in knowledge and experience with the Student Learning
Objectives (SLOs) listed in your syllabus for English 301 at California State University Fullerton.
Through this brief portfolio, I hope to convince you of how I have successfully and effectively
accomplished the six SLOs of organization and focus, academic language and design, rhetorical focus,
collaboration, ethical research, and persuasive arguments, through discussion board forums and peer
analysis throughout the Spring 2017 term.
The first pair of SLOs I'd like to discuss are organization and focus, and academic language and
design. In my discussion board post for Thursday February 2, 11:52pm (week 2), I briefly discussed the
layout, organization, use of headings, infographics, and subtitles comparatively between three
Wikipedia web pages, and how I could apply these writing tools for my extended definition group
paper. My post exemplifies my understanding of how necessary and effective organizing a paper can
lead to clarity, focus, and understanding on the part of the reader and writer. I also noted the language
and content used in the wikipedia pages, and understood that sensitivity to gender and cultural
differences (Bruce, 2) as well as educational differences were important. I acknowledged how
Wikipedia addressed this by including hyperlinks to other pages with definitions to difficult
terminology, to cater the language and design to a larger audience.
The next two SLOs I'd like to discuss are rhetorical focus and collaboration. Understanding
rhetorical focus means possessing the ability to "write formally and informally, in-class and out-of-
class for a variety of audiences and purposes (Bruce, 2). I both understand and display this learning
objective through my discussion board response to classmate Tamyra on Sunday, February 26, 3:55pm
(week 5), regarding her research question about ovarian cysts. I addressed her in an informal, casual
forum post with simple terminology, while providing helpful suggestions as to how she could relate her
research topic better to her audience, by providing more common, comparable and relatable
experiences regarding pain. I also included a more formal example of how she could rephrase her
research question and address it to a more educated and knowledgable audience (the professor) by
using larger, more sophisticated, terminology: What advancements are being made to inform women
on how to mitigate the development/symptoms of ovarian cysts?. By throughly critiquing Tamyra's
original research question draft, and providing an example, I also showed my ability to effectively
collaborate.
My understanding and application of the final set of SLOs ethical research and persuasive
arguments are demonstrated in my peer review to group member Analy on Saturday, April 15,
9:41pm (week 12), and my response to Sarah's research question draft on Sunday February 26, 4:20pm
(week 5). I noted in Analy's review, that her editorial draft was lacking a reference list, and how I was
not able to verify or determine the type of sources she was using, or how diverse or credible the sources
were. This shows that I knew the importance of citing information, of the key role that credibility and
diversity played in choosing a source to support a document, while also taking into account the level of
bias (there was none). In my comment to Sarah, I took opposing arguments, assumptions, and
cultural/political values into consideration in my recommendation for her to rethink her terminology of
fake news, as a reader could connect it to President Trump's recent label to some very liberal news
sources, and she may loose the reader's interest.
Completing this course has allowed me to improve as a writer, a reader, and an effective
analyzer through the completion of the six Student Learning Objectives. The selected peer reviews and
discussion board posts above, demonstrate my understanding of the SLOs in how to write more
efficiently and effectively through rhetorical focus, collaboration, ethical research, persuasive
arguments, organization and focus, and academic language and design. I am confident, that you will
agree. I thank you in advance for your time.

Sincerely,
Natasha Yasin