Date: April 26, 2019

To: Shannon Francis

From: Michaela Eckstein
Subject: Reflective Memorandum of English 219

I completed three major projects for English 219 throughout the semester. Each of these
projects focused on different student learning objectives (SLOs). Below I have outlined how
each project contributed to my learning of these SLOs.
Project 1
The purpose of creating this cover letter and resume was to learn how to create
documents that are usually requested when someone is applying for a job. Part of this goal was
finding a way to format these documents so that they would help me secure the job, in this case,
with Cooking with Kids. This piece would achieve its purpose by providing the intended primary
reader with information about my past educational and volunteering experiences, my skills and
activities, and my excitement about their job opportunity.
I used SLO 3 by following the proper design and formatting conventions of the
professional genre for cover letters and resumes to create this document in a way that was
professional and informative. The primary audience of this document is whoever would read my
cover letter and resume to decide if I were to get a follow-up interview for the job.
I used SLO 5 when considering my audience in order to properly design my documents
to reflect how I could fulfill their needs and that I agreed with their values. This audience also
affected my design choice because I wanted my documents to look professional and present its
contents in a professional way.
In order to polish my documents so that they were even more geared to my audience and
were appropriate for the genre, I edited and had other students peer edit them. At that time, I peer
edited other students’ documents as well. These edits reflect SLO 7 because I looked across all
four levels of revision, focusing on levels one and two, both while editing my own work and
while editing the works of others.

Project 2
The purpose of creating this PowerPoint proposal was to learn how to present an audio-visual
proposal for a problem in the workplace or a specific career field. For it, I chose to address and
provide a solution to the problem of a lack of nutrition education in medical schools. This piece
would achieve its purpose if presented to its true intended audience by providing information on
and a solution to a common problem in the health care field.
I used SLO 6 to create a PowerPoint that is able to present this information in a clear and
concise way that the audience is able to understand. Similarly, I used SLO 9 to create a visually
appealing presentation including audio. With this SLO, I also was able to practice and learn more
about presenting a project orally using a presentation and about how to convert presentations into
videos.
The primary audience of this document would be doctors and other professionals
involved in developing medical school curricula. This audience affected my design choice
because I wanted to create a presentation that matched the to-the-point, well-educated
personality of most of my audience members. To do this, I made sure my information was well-
researched and that I kept my presentation concise. In order to make sure my information was
accurate, I used SLO 4 while researching. I used a primary source of a peer-reviewed journal
article to gain background knowledge on nutrition education in medical schools. I also used
secondary sources in order to create a rough estimate of what a budget would look like for such a
project.

Project 3
The purpose of creating this recommendation report was to learn how to work as a group to
present a formal report for a specific subject in the workplace by researching the issue and
providing a solution. For it, my group chose to address advisement in the College of Education at
UNM. This piece achieves its by providing detailed information about the problems with
advisement and providing a solution to fixing this problem in a clear and concise manner.
My group used SLO 1 while working together to create a plan of what to cover in our
report and of what roles each person would take on. This SLO was kept in mind during the
research and composition of our document, as we all created our parts individually, but were able
to put everything together to create one cohesive report.
We used SLO 9 to make this report into an organized paper with an understandable, easy-
to-follow layout. The primary audience of this report is whoever is in control of how the College
of Education runs advisement. This audience affected our design choice because we needed to
provide accurate information about the College in a way that is easy to follow and quick to read,
as the audience is most likely very busy. To do this, we made sure our information was well-
researched and that our report was concise. I personally focused on making our graphics,
especially our chart comparing an advisor job posting for UNM with one for NMSU in a clear
way that easily and accurately showed similarities and differences.
We used SLO 2 while identifying our primary readers as the heads of COE advisement.
After analyzing this audience, we wrote our recommendation report to respectfully emphasize
our subject of the importance and need for a change in how advisement is done.

Overall Course
Throughout this course, I developed many valuable skills that will help me create the documents
needed to secure and work well in a professional career. During project 3, I learned how to work
well in a group to complete a single document. I learned how to utilize multiple forms of textual
presentation, ranging from short, simple memos to more detailed, well-researched audio-visual
presentations.
Throughout all the projects throughout this course as well as the final portfolio, I
developed skills related to SLO 8. I learned how to organize both written documents and
presentations to easily share information with an intended audience. By developing a website for
my final portfolio, I also learned how to organize and manage web content in a way that is
accessible and user-friendly.