Jasmine Moore

UWRT 1104-026

Professor Volstad

Reflective Portfolio Letter

12/2/2018

Dear Professor Volstad:

Time flies when your life is falling apart or at least when you think it is falling apart. This

semester has been a whirlwind of events. Who would have thought that I would meet so many

great people? I really expected to just walk in and focus on getting what I needed to accomplish

done. Instead, as I approach the end of the semester I am leaving the class with Zach as my

boyfriend and half of the class numbers in my phone. I’ve never been in a class as interesting and

entertaining as yours and I would like to take the time to thank you for structuring the class the

way that you did. Not only have I made friends but I have actually processed what I've learned

from your critiques and have improved my writing. That’s enough of this sappy introduction. It’s

time to move on to what you are really reading this letter for.

I appreciate your time in reading through the materials I have included in my UWRT

1104-026 final portfolio. I’ve worked diligently on my writing this semester, and I hope you’ll

agree that I’ve become an effective academic writer. I would like to take this opportunity to

highlight some specific examples of the progress I have made toward the intended course

learning outcomes of UWRT 1104-026. You will see evidence of my progress in the areas of

Rhetorical Knowledge, Composing Processes, Critical Reflection, Critical Reading, and

Knowledge of Conventions.
 Anyone who writes understands how important it is to trust the process of putting your

words on paper. The blood, sweat, and tears are what shows that you’ve embraced the pain of

drafting, reviewing, realizing that what you’ve put down makes no sense at all, experimenting

with different tones, realizing that you sound like a conceited jerk, adapting, and rewriting

(Syllabus). Ok, maybe I was being a little dramatic but I’m literally about to shed a tear while

typing this. Whether or not you are an Aerospace Engineer or a college student who is passionate

about advocating for people’s rights, this skill is essential for enhancing your writing skills. In

class, we learned how to use rhetorical knowledge and composing processes to develop and

enhance our writing styles. To me, having a good and flexible thesis in my writing meant stating

three main arguments and that’s all. This semester, I developed a new understanding of creating

a good thesis that both relays my arguments and clearly gives a preview as to what is to come.

This shows up in my Mini-Ethnography, “The Misconceptions of Mental Illness and The Stigma

that Follows.” In the first draft that I submitted, I had a basic thesis statement with very little

background information to engage my audience and did not clearly give a heads up on what the

paper was about. My thesis in the first draft was “People suffering from mental illness are

stereotyped as dangerous, weak-willed, and as fabricating their symptoms. Along with the

negative impact of associative stigma on their family and friends, the time has come where the

stigma associated with mental illness must become a top health priority in order to help spread

the awareness of mental illness worldwide” ( “The” 1). For the second draft, I expanded the

thesis by including what my ethnography was going to be about. My second thesis went like

“People suffering from mental illness are stereotyped as dangerous, weak-willed, and as

fabricating their symptoms. The time has come where the stigma associated with mental illness

must become a top health priority in order to help spread the awareness of mental illness
worldwide by providing the proper resources such as formal training and classes in every social

setting” (“The” 1). I felt like this thesis statement was much more solid and really gave the

reader a clear pathway to follow for the rest of the paper. The clear and concise thesis statement

in the Mini Ethnography is evidence of how important it is to understand how to use rhetorical

concepts to analyze, compose, and adapt my writing according to my audience, the type of

context that I am working with, and the purpose of my paper (Syllabus). Another example of

why rhetorical knowledge and composing processes is important is because it makes you able to,

through research, develop the ability to shift your voice and medium on purpose to accommodate

a broader audience. I was also able to develop my ideas and enhance my argument through

writing multiple drafts in order to deepen engagement with the source material, my own ideas,

and the ideas of others and as a means of strengthening claims and solidifying my logical

arguments (Syllabus). Our very first assignment in UWRT dealt with both of these goals. The

Personal Narrative and Discourse Community Essay oiled my gears for what was to come. What

was great about this essay was that it offered creative freedom which is an excellent way to

practice engaging with your own ideas and finding your medium. An example of me developing

my medium can be seen in the following sentence, “Why did I choose to take Western History?”

I ask myself as I trudge up this steep hill while trying to shield my eyes from the giant ball of

burning gas that we call the Sun. Today is going to be a good day,” because I used humor and

sarcasm to develop my thoughts (“Personal”).

Reflecting on what you have done and where you came from in life is a great way to

realize that you’ve made it so much further than where you started. When I look back to my

middle school days I am appalled that I dressed the way that I did. Hunter green is definitely not

my color. It wasn’t until my older sister, who is around your age Professor V, came to my rescue.
She hooked me up with some rocking feather earrings and let me wear some pink lemonade

flavored lip gloss and I thought that I was popping like Lil Mama. I wasn’t by the way but what

she taught me back then was how to collaborate and revise my look. Reflecting on the past I

realize how common it is for us to reflect on something. In order to become a better writer, I had

to collaborate, interpret, and revise many of my works. The weekly studios/discussions that were

assigned played a huge part in my growth. The studios helped me see other people’s

perspectives on our weekly topics as well as allowed me to have to respond to their thoughts

with my own. This can be seen during Studio Week 9: Sharing Your Insight, where I gave my

opinion on the article “How Big a Problem Is Bullying or Cyberbullying in Your School or

Community? This article was written by Katherine Schulten. My opinion on the article was that

“The article was very blunt in my opinion. In this case, I believe that this was the best way to

relate the issue of how impactful bullying can be on someone. I could feel the emotions that the

author had through the way that they wrote the article” (Studio 9). I noticed how my other

classmates had similar responses but a different approach to the topic. An example would be

Zach who also wrote about how blunt the article was, “I think that this topic does not need

sugarcoating. People have to know how badly bullying affects children all over America and the

world as a whole” (Studio 9). Being able to illustrate reflection is a necessary part of learning,

thinking and communicating and is very important because without listening to other people’s

opinions and reflecting upon them we would never be able to add to our own (Syllabus). Life is

all about growth and an example of growth can be seen in my Studio Week 8: Reflective

Writing, where I let my pathos show and I got teary-eyed as I talked about my struggles as a

writer. An example is, “When I write, I always try to stay true to myself. I am a sarcastic

individual who loves to use humor to get my point across and many times this can be seen in my
writing. The problem with this is that many people in today's society are sensitive and do not

appreciate the beauty of humor and sarcasm. This has led me to start to double check my writing

to see if my use of humor is too much” (Studio 8). Now when I write I don’t think too much

about how my sarcasm will affect someone unless there are restrictions.

The ability to critically read is such an underrated talent in society. There are so many

people out there who would kill to be able to read. That is why I am so happy that you gave us so

many reading assignments. Seriously, I haven’t read this much since kindergarten and even then

I wasn’t the one reading the books. All jokes aside except the fact that my mom is the one who

helped me earn all of my reading awards in kindergarten. My finesse game was strong back in

the day. My most challenging reading assignment was from “Remix Chapter 2: Community”

where we had to discuss a community that we were involved in. I seriously sat down staring at

my screen for an hour trying to come up with a community that I am involved in. I thought that I

was a boring and antisocial individual until I realized that I am a photographer. The reason why I

struggled to come up with a community wasn’t because I’m antisocial, which I’m not, but

because I hadn’t critically read that chapter. If I would have critically read that chapter the first

time and interpreted the meaning of a community then I would not have had any trouble with

coming up with this beautiful statement, “the ability to capture a precious moment through a lens

creates a never-ending bond between beauty and the eyes of the beholder” (Remix). That

statement effectively unites the photographer community. Critically reading does not only apply

to books but to determining whether or not a source can be used in your research. For my

Annotated Bibliography, I used Atkins resources as well as journals and articles to “locate and

evaluate (for credibility, sufficiency, accuracy, timeliness, bias) primary and secondary research

materials” (Syllabus). What this did was help me expand my knowledge on how to find the
proper sources for future papers. An example would be me discovering that the following article

The History of Mental Illness: From Skull Drills to Happy Pills written by Foerschner is “about

the beginnings of mental illness” and is considered a primary source due to it being peer

reviewed (“Annotated”).

I cannot tell you how many times that I was told by my teachers in high school that

plagiarizing is illegal yet every time that I looked someone was being accused of doing this

illegal action. One reason for these continuous accusations was because at my school they never

taught us that we could plagiarize ourselves. That’s a pretty big issue. This is why knowledge of

conventions is so beneficial. I am truly grateful that in Chapter 4: "Working With Multimodal

Sources" they explained how the "Ethics of Collecting Sources and Assets" worked and how it

relates to the "concepts of intellectual property" (Syllabus). My favorite one is Creative

Commons because it "provides researchers with a massive collection of assets that are easily

searchable and can be used without worrying about strict copyright laws" (Chapter 4). I also

enjoyed learning about the 5 Modes of Communication from Chapter 2: Analyzing Multi-modal

Projects which are "Visual, Aural, Linguistic, Spatial, and Gestural" (Chapter 2). Chapter 2

helped me "influence the content, style, organization, graphics, and document design" that I used

in my portfolio (Syllabus).

I am not the kind of person that feels sad about leaving a class at the end of the semester

but there is something about the bond of this class makes me want to come to class. If I was able

to go back in time then I would make sure to appreciate the people in the class more. I feel as

though your methods of teaching correlated with the goals of the class so well that you should

give these other professors a tip on how to structure their class. I’m just kidding Professor V, not

about how your class is structured, your uniqueness is what led me to recommend two of my
friends to take your class. Thank you for making it so that the fun came through hard work and

learning.

Peace Out,

Jasmine Moore