Lauren Decker

UWRT 1104
December 6, 2017

Dear Professor Turgeon,

During this semester, I believe that I have accomplished every single goal that we were

asked to accomplish. We were given goals at the beginning of the semester, the first goal was

learning about rhetorical knowledge. Rhetorical Knowledge is defined as the ability to identify

and apply strategies across a range of texts and writing situations (Turgeon, 2017). After that

goal we were assigned to goal of learning how to read critically, which is, the ability to analyze,

synthesize, interpret, and evaluate ideas, information and texts (Turgeon, 2017).

In high school we learned about rhetorical knowledge, but I never fully understood what I was

doing. In your class I was able to better understand how to apply what we learned to almost any

type of media. Having us rhetorically analyze articles, commercials, and TV shows helped me

figure out how to determine what I need to do differently in my writing. For example, it has

helped me with my research paper because I now have to remember that I am writing it for a

younger audience and they may not understand exactly what I am saying sometimes. It is

important for people to remember who their audience is and how that affects their creation.

It also helped me figure out what my purpose for writing or creating anything is. If I do not have

a purpose to create something it will not be as good, but if I have a purpose to write my writing

will be more focused and I will produce a better paper. My first drafts are always not as good,

not because it is my first draft, but because I always wait until the very last moment to start them,

and I do not feel motivated, nor do I have a good reason to be writing other than the fact that a
draft is due soon. For example, my first draft for my narrative started like this, There was once a

time where I hated to read (Decker, 2017). Once I edited it and revised it, my narrative story

started like this, There was once a time where I hated to read even though my parents would

read to me all day and all night and both of my siblings read constantly (Decker, 2017). Those

changed because through that writing process I found my motivation to write my paper and it

showed by my paper changing throughout my drafts.

I will say that having us do the multimodal creation was a challenge at the time but, now

that I look back, it was very helpful because it made me figure out another way to show how I

learned to speak English. It made me find a different medium to share my story through. It was

very difficult then, but thinking back on it I really appreciate how it helped us understand more

about rhetoric. It allowed us to experiment on how to change our writing into something other

than just a paper. This could help me in my writing because sometimes I write to the wrong

audience and by having to change my writing to something that represented it, allowed me to

think differently. It got me thinking about how I would have to change my writing if I was

writing to a different audience. The multimodal creation was honestly one of my favorite things

we have done all semester. Figuring out what to do was not fun, but once I did it was really cool

to see how my reading changed and shifted throughout the years. I started with this, You have

brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you

choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide

where to go... (Dr. Seuss, 1990), and I ended with this quote by Mark Batterson, "Embrace

relational uncertainty. It's called romance. Embrace spiritual uncertainty. It's called mystery.

Embrace occupational uncertainty. It's called destiny. Embrace emotional uncertainty. It's called

joy. Embrace intellectual uncertainty. It's called revelation." (2006).

 Reading critically has been something that I have been working on all the way through

middle school and high school. It was something that I was not very good at when I started, and I

still wouldnt say I am great at it, but I am gradually improving. I have greatly improved in

critical reading for research. When I conducted research in the past, it was really hard for me to

read and then form my own ideas, but now I am able to read a couple of articles and gather

information, so I can have my own thoughts and ideas when I am writing my paper. It has also

helped me when reading other peoples articles or papers. I have found myself reading these

articles critically and really thinking about what these people are writing about. While I read I

ask myself, why is this author writing this? How can this article help or hurt me? What do I not

understand about this article that I need to do some extra research on so I can fully understand

what the author is trying to say? By asking myself these types of questions I am allowing

myself to fully understand and analyze what the author is saying and why it is important that I

am reading the authors article or paper.

This year has also been helpful in allowing me to use all my resources and find good research

from multiple sources. This helps me form a strong and clear thought, such as my thesis from our

research paper, By using these marketing techniques, companies are able to select who their

market audience is, collect data from their market and sell their product more efficiently to their

target market. (Decker, 2017). I was able to form this thesis statement after reading many

articles over marketing techniques and forming my own opinion based on what I had read.

After rhetorical knowledge and critical reading, we were given three more goals. Those

goals include: learning about our composing process, knowledge of conventions, and critical

reflection. Composing process is when writers use multiple strategies, or composing processes,

to conceptualize, develop, and finalize projects (Turgeon, 2017). Knowledge of conventions is

important because conventions are the formal rules and informational guidelines that define

genres, and in so doing shapes readers and writers expectations of correctness or

appropriateness (Turgeon, 2017). And the final goal was working on our ability to critically

reflect on any experience. Critical reflection is defined as, a writers ability to articulate what

s/he is thinking and why (Turgeon, 2017). These goals were very helpful and they will all be

used as I go throughout my years here at Charlotte.

Understanding what conventions are and how they can assist in writing in a more

efficient way helped me a lot because I understood what I could expect out of myself and my

writing. Having to change the way we think or change the way we usually write a paper was

difficult for me. The multimodal creation challenged a lot of people in how hard it was to come

up with something that represented our own writing. It proved to be a lot harder than I expected.

We also worked really hard on making sure that our citations were not interrupting our writing.

That there were not too many citations to where our writing was hard to read. And I have done

that before, but now I really notice it and understand that sometimes in a paper there can be too

many citations. For example, in my first draft of my research paper, most of it was all citations

and a lot of it was not even my own words, once I fixed that the paper became easier to read and

I was better able to help educate my audience about the topic I was writing about. Learning

about how citations can really affect your writing really helped me understand not only that a

paper can have too many citations, but it also helped me know where to put my quotes in my

paper so that my whole paper was not just quotes from other people making my paper extremely

hard to read. This was very helpful, and I will remember and use it throughout my life.

Critical reflection is something that I am still working on as a writer. I struggle with

explaining my choices and why I do things. Honestly this letter would have been very hard for
me to write if I was asked to complete this assignment before this semester. But now I can write

this letter a little easier because of practice within this course. I am not very good at gathering

my thoughts and writing them down, the reflection letter for our multimodal project was a

struggle for me. But since we have practiced writing reflections about almost everything we have

done I feel that I have a much better handle on how to collect my thoughts and project them in a

way that people can completely understand what I am trying to say.

This year has been full of learning opportunities and honestly this has been one of the

best English and writing classes I have ever taken. I feel that after learning all five of these skills

I can go out and not only get by but strive in my writing throughout college and the rest if my

life. I will look forward to seeing how all five of these goals will help me and how I continue to

grow by using them.

Sincerely,

Lauren Decker