TO: Dr.

Dev Bose
FROM: Janet Baker
DATE: December 11, 2015
SUBJECT: Final Reflection Memo

Prior to taking this course I had some preconceived notions about what English 101
would teach me. Since its been a long time for me between English classes, I figured wed be
doing a lot of creative writing, period. To my great surprise, this course offered me so much
more than that. From the Animoto introduction through all 3 projects and homework
assignments right up to the e-portfolio, I learned quite a lot about writing in the real world.
One of the most important learning outcomes from this course was rhetorical
awareness. I really became comfortable with this concept while writing Essay 3, Writing to
Analyze: Genre Analysis. The goal of that essay, as stated at the top of the assignment sheet, was
explore how texts are shaped by their contexts and users. That assignment really made me
study and analyze various ways that my chosen community, Tucson Reptile Rescue, wrote to
communicate their particular message. I was able to produce enough quotes and examples from
their web and social media sites to illustrate purpose, audience and their rhetorical situation.
There were about 18 learning outcomes to be gained from Project 3. However, for the
purposes of this reflection, I chose two listed under Rhetorical Awareness:

B. Analyze the ways a texts purposes, audiences and contexts influence rhetorical
options.
C. analyze how genres shape reading and composing practices.

Overall, the assignment really helped me understand genre, especially as I performed the
peer review. Even though I felt I had written a pretty good rough draft, my peer pointed out that
I had run off on a tangent that wasnt useful to the paper. I had written about the events my
community attended, but those events were not in print. In turn, while analyzing my peers
paper, I had to really make sure that I knew what I was talking about when it came to genre; I
had to reanalyze my own work while looking at his. From that aspect, under the Revision and
Reflection category, one learning outcome comes to mind:

Suggest useful local and global revisions to other writers.

I placed Essay 3 under Genre in the collected works portion of my portfolio.

Another course goal involved critical thinking and composing. The learning outcomes
during this phase involved reading and research, as well as gathering evidence. Essay 2, Profile
of a Community, is a good example of how I incorporated all those things into my essay. This
second essay is the one Ive chosen to revise. Although our Rules for Writers guide was really

helpful, one of my weaknesses is in-text citation. I felt a bit overwhelmed by all the choices one
has to make depending on the information source. Hopefully my revision, located under
Revision in my portfolio, corrected my lack of citation. Therefore, I think my most valuable
learning outcome was as follows:

Make informed judgements about the quality, appropriateness and credibility of sources.

Reflection and revision were also major portions of this course. I really enjoyed Project 1
because Im a reflection person at heart. Even so, this assignment taught me how important
the role of observer is to a writer. Attending the End of Summer Fiesta event at the Desert
Museum, when I was compelled to take notes on as many details as possible, served to remind
me about how much I could have missed. Reflecting and writing about that event made me want
to recapture the scene as closely as possible for my readers to understand what I experienced.
The revision process of this project was helped greatly by the feedback I received on my
rough draft. As a result, I paid closer attention to smoothing out the transitions between
paragraphs, cutting down long paragraphs and adding more descriptive phrases to the paper. The
peer review process that was introduced during this assignment taught me that reading someone
elses paper was very helpful when revising my own. In other words, it taught me to be my own
critic.
As mentioned above, I chose to revise Essay 2, Profile of Tucson Reptile
Rescue because that paper needed improvement. This assignment was challenging because I had
to discipline myself to stick to the point; I tend to switch off and wander a bit. Due to the
feedback I received I agree that I should have put a clearer focus on my community right up at
the front of the paper. I rewrote the first paragraph to fix that problem. There was also an
awkward transition between two paragraphs where I had placed a bold-faced header. I took out
the header and composed new wording so that the paragraphs would flow smoothly. Finally, I
added more in-text citations and redesigned the essay with photographs. The following were my
learning outcomes upon completing Essay 2:

Produce multiple revisions on global and local levels

Being aware of conventions in writing was the 4th goal in this class. Although I think I have
a very good command of the conventions of spelling, grammar and punctuation, I did learn a few
things about paragraphing and transitioning. Through feedback I realized that my paragraphs
needed to be shortened. Also, I really had to discipline myself when it came to citations. I really
lose patience with that aspect of writing. However, the Rules for Writers manual proved to be
very helpful. If by conventions were talking about how a writer uses different conventions
depending on the genre or role the writer is using, then I clearly recognized the differences as I

wrote for our three projects: observer, reporter and interpreter. The closest learning outcome I
feel I gained is this one:

Reflect on why genre conventions for structure, paragraphing, tone and mechanics
vary.

My portfolio also includes two homework projects. The first is from Homework # 1,
Find a Written Conversation. I placed that under the keyword Conversation in my
portfolio. During this exercise we were to choose a topic and then locate sources that
contributed opinions to the conversation. It was interesting to research and find that although
many of the main thoughts were the same, each source used different rhetoric to deliver their
message. The primary learning outcome from this assignment was as follows:

Support ideas or positions with compelling discussion of evidence from multiple

The second homework assignment is from Homework # 9 and required that we analyze
two film reviews. I really enjoyed this exercise. We were asked to identify the organizational
patterns/rhetorical moves in the genre and analyze how these moves help carry out the writers
aim(s). I purposefully found one review that was really positive and one that was really
negative. I was able to find similar conventions that each author used and, although their
rhetoric was entirely different, their purpose was the same: to either encourage the audience with
good feedback or warn the audience with poor feedback. I placed my assignment under
Purpose in the Collected Works of my portfolio. My learning outcome as a result of this
homework was:

Identify the purposes of, intended audiences for and arguments in a text, as situated
within a particular cultural, economic and political context.

Overall, the greatest challenge for me during this course was learning a lot of new
computer technology. I had to overcome the feeling of being on shaky ground, but in the end I
realized my head was more above water than I realized. I think I did a pretty good job designing
my e-portfolio since Ive done anything like this before. Weebly, Popplet, the peer review
process and the discussion exercises were immensely valuable.
I really enjoyed this class. It was very challenging, organized and goal-oriented. Most
importantly it opened up a lot of new writing skills that Ill be using in the future. Thank you!