Josh's ePortfolio

English 1010 

 Reflection Essay,

In this assignment I was to pick a past time from my life and write a reflection essay on the past event.

Rhetorical Analysis,

  In this assignment I was to pick a visual piece and rhetorically analyze the piece.  

Reflective writing,

Overall Revision Experience

                When I came into English 1010 I was very intimidated by the work. I never thought I could be good at writing and I have never done well in an English class. After writing my reflection essay I became a little more confident in my writing skills, even though I still had a lot of punctuation mistakes. As I got deeper into the class I started feeling more comfortable. I learned many skills, such as the appeals, rhetorical analysis, punctuation (comma splice), MLA format, and many other things. I have learned more about writing than I could imagine. I still am not fully confident of my writing, but I do know that my writing has improved tenfold.

               I believe that my strengths are detail, structure, listening to feedback, good topic choices, good analysis, and reflection. I would say I only have two weaknesses, but there are probably more. Those weaknesses are confidence and thinking that I will never use what I have learned in the future.

                Through my experience in writing I have learned that the most important thing to do is research and prewrite. You can never have too much information. By doing the proper research I can make sure that I am totally prepared for what I’m writing. In the long run this will make my writing more authentic and structured, making my paper well done.

                Peer review has been an interesting experience. During my reflection essay I got a lot of good information and feedback from my peers. This helped me shorten my essay and give it the final touch it needed. Once I got to my Rhetorical essay I didn’t take the feedback very seriously. The reason for that is the peer that I switched papers with had a very unstructured paper, with many mistakes. So in turn it was hard for me to actually listen to the feedback that was given to me. In the long run though, having peer reviews was a positive experience for me.

                In my reflection essay I specifically became more confident with my writing. The main thing I learned was how to properly structure a sentence and not have comma splices. In this essay I learned a lot from myself as well. Being able to look back on this rough experience and dig deeper into my feelings really helped me deal with demons that I had locked away. In my rhetorical analysis I learned the many ways of analyzing (appeals, conceptual tools, and perspectives). It taught me that when you first look at a picture or text, you’re just scratching the surface on what the message really is. I learned that you need to take a second look and see the bigger message in the piece.

                Last but not least, I have improved my skills tenfold. I have learned things that I didn’t even know about. I was open to feedback and open to the idea of learning new things. And I will admit that I will most likely use these skills in the future.

                Sincerely,

             Joshua Hammond 

 Issue Summary Paper,

In this assignment I was to pick a subject that I was interested in, then research it. Then write a Issue Summary Paper of three outside perspectives.

Position Argument Paper,

In this assignment I took my research from the issue summary paper and wrote a paper on my perspective of the issue. 

Genre Translation,

In this assignment I took my perspective and turned it into a visual piece that would get across the same message as my position argument. 

 Reflective writing,

           Most of my writing process for my issue summary paper, position argument and genre translation was spent researching and then processing that research. I spent a lot of my time gathering research and then putting it into my own words. Once I got the idea of how I wanted to structure my paper I was able to write it out easily because of all the proper research I did.  The hardest things I had to deal with, was summing my perspective in a page and a half. I also had a difficult time with my genre translation. I found a great picture to use, but I had to go through all my research and come to a conclusion on what facts I wanted to put in my genre translation.

            I used nothing but credible true facts in all my papers. It was not easy to comply it and make it all make since and I was only able to scratch the surface of my topic. Coming into the issue summary, I wanted to show perspectives of for and against. But in my research I could never find the facts to back up the people that were against marijuana. Mostly they were opinions on the subject. Some of the medical terms in my paper were hard to understand but other than that my papers was understandable and persuasive.

            My position argument and genre translation turned out very well. After my peer review on my issue summary, I had to go back and change mistakes throughout the paper. My biggest problem with the issue summary was not putting my opinion into the paper. It posed a great task for me to just analyze and state the facts without my opinion.

            Like in all assignments, I have learned that I need to properly research my topic and create an outline for the paper to be prepared. Coming into the assignment I thought I knew so much about medical and agricultural marijuana. When actually I had only touched the surface, through my research, I learned facts that I had never known. Researching and preparing myself to write, are the most important things to do before writing.

            The only idea I have, would be to give each major assignment the same length. So for the reflection essay and rhetorical analysis, the time should be shortened. Then you should add a little extra time to the issue summary and argument paper as a whole. So the three largest essays have an equal amount of time to complete them. My reasoning for this is because, at least for me, the issue summary, argument paper and genre translation were the most difficult assignments of the semester.

               Sincerely,

          Joshua Hammond