Academic Retrospective: Growth and Learning

 Throughout the semester in my W131 reading, writing, and inquiry class, I created an E-Portfolio as a multimodal discourse tool. The E-Portfolio helped me empathize with my audience. I became aware of how people read a screen with rapid eye return, which made me consider them as I wrote. I helped orient my readers to the page by providing a clear title, an abstract/overview, pull-out quotes, and multiple pictures. By using strategic design elements like pull-out quotes, I was able to keep my readers' eyes moving and engaged in my writing. 

 

My professor, Debbie Oesch-Minor, taught me numerous ways to keep my audience engaged in my readings, form multiple source paragraphs, and reflect on my writing projects to improve them. I completed a review of the documentary film "Dark Days," wrote a feature style narrative about my experience serving food to homeless people in Downtown Indianapolis, and crafted a formal argument to encourage readers to reconsider food bans and restrictions regarding homeless individuals and volunteers. These projects enabled me to achieve several course goals and acquire skills that will benefit me in future classes. I was able to enhance each skill I learned as the course progressed and I began working on new projects. By the end of the semester, I felt confident in my work because of the skills I learned in Debbie's class. 

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Film Review: My first writing project in this class was a film review. I had never written a film review or even taken written notes about a film before. Before choosing a film to review for our project, the class was assigned to take notes on the movie Unbranded. This assignment served as a practice for the notes we would take on the documentary film we chose to review. Taking notes on Unbranded taught me to pay close attention to details like character development, setting, and expert voices. As you can see in Figure 1, my notes were sloppy and disorganized since it was my first time taking notes on a movie. I focused more on characters rather than their development or how the director portrays the 5Ws—who, what, when, where, why, and how the film was made. Note-taking was the most challenging part of Writing Project 1. With the experience from Unbranded, I felt more confident taking organized and relevant notes on the film Dark Days. In Figure 2, you can see my notes for Dark Days, where I focused more on the 5Ws and applied strategies I learned in this class. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Feature Style Narrative: By the time I started writing my feature style narrative, I had applied numerous skills I gained in this course. For our feature style narrative, we were given the opportunity to explore a new contact zone and write about it. This class taught me to be more open-minded and accept failure. For instance, my initial immersion experience idea didn't go as planned, but I didn't panic like I normally would. I learned that if something doesn't work out, I should try something else. Instead of seeing it as a failure, I turned it into a new possibility. While researching and writing about my immersion experience, I learned how to use sources effectively by synthesizing ideas, integrating them smoothly, and documenting them correctly. These skills became second nature to me when I learned how to apply the Anomalisa and ICE-ICE paragraph strategies shown in figures 3 and 4. These strategies included introducing who I was quoting and providing two or more sources in a paragraph to build off one another. By learning these strategies, I was able to document sources correctly and provide the reader with high-quality sources such as NPR or the National Library of Medicine. Being able to form a multiple-source paragraph and integrate the sources correctly by explaining them helped me in future projects like the Argument and will continue to help me in future classes as I continue my education.

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​Argument: I was able to improve on all of the strategies I had previously used in the Film Review and Feature Style Narrative while also learning new skills that allowed me to reach course goals. Before I solidified a topic for my argument, I did a lot of research. I had never done this in the past with argumentative papers, but it helped me in the long run. Since I already had so many sources researched, when I picked a topic, all I had to do was form a thesis and write. I often struggled with thesis statements before this class. I would usually have strong papers with supportive evidence, but my thesis was lacking. In this class, I experimented with XYZ Thesis [Academic Corrective Thesis], Claim-Based Thesis, and Three-Point Thesis statements. A three-point thesis fit best with my argument because I chose to focus on three points that would convince my readers that communities should not have bans and restrictions that prevent volunteers from serving food to homeless people. I felt that this thesis statement would force my readers to focus on three main points from the beginning of my argument. I practiced keeping my audience engaged in my argument and forming multiple-source paragraphs. In my argument, I used multiple ICE-ICE paragraphs that provided multiple facts, statistics, and evidence from sources like The American Hospital Association, The National Library of Medicine, The National Coalition for the Homeless, and The National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty. By using nationally recognized sources, I was able to support my thesis and practice integrating sources correctly. This was the last of the three projects, and I was able to practice all the skills I learned and meet the course goals I set for myself at the beginning of the semester.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Throughout the semester, I became a more confident writer and crafted an E-Portfolio that will accompany me throughout my undergraduate and graduate education. The Atlantic had a quote that said, "Students don't graduate with only report cards and test scores: they leave with an electronic portfolio of their best work- their papers, speeches, projects- which they can bring to prospective colleges and employers to illustrate the kind of work they are capable of. The portfolio method enlarges our understanding of what assessment can look like." I loved that Debbie used a project-based class because now I have written multiple projects that showcase my best work. I have been taught how to keep my audience engaged in my writings, form multiple-source paragraphs, and reflect on my writing projects to improve them. I revised my film review after receiving constructive criticism from my teacher. I added a better transition between sources in my ICE-ICE paragraph, fixed source citation errors, and edited topic sentences and structural errors. While writing my feature-style narrative, I struggled to describe the people I encountered during my immersion experience. Jennifer Percy quickly develops the Afghan police on page three by describing what they drove and how much facial hair they had. She uses visual descriptions to integrate these characters into the article. She said, "The men wore black clothes and had very little facial hair." In the next line of text, she says they are the Afghan secret police. I used Percy's character development strategies to describe the woman who kindly warned me of conflict during my experience. Instead of saying, "the elderly woman," I wrote, "A woman with cold, wrinkled hands places hers on mine." Simple changes in these writing projects forced me to reflect on how I write, and I am now more confident in everything I write. I am so glad I was able to be in this class during my first semester of college because I learned a plethora of strategies that will follow me in my future career. I met multiple course goals and I feel good about my WIX website.