Emily Pizzoferrato

April 22, 2016

Contains: Literacy Narrative, Genre Analysis, Ethnographic
Research Study, and Reflection

FINAL PORTFOLIO

Emily Pizzoferrato
Laura Thompson
Intermediate Composition
Literacy Narrative
Writing Myself onto Paper
Writing has always come easily to me. Growing up I had a strange fascination with
editing and writing. I was never very good at articulating the scenes I had in my mind, which is
why I gave up on writing until I was in high school.
In one of my high school English classes we were all assigned to write an epic, a long
poem narrating heroes of great historical or legendary importance and the valorous deeds they
completed, and read them to the class when they were finished. I remember finishing reading the
first paragraph of my epic to the class and looking up to see the yearning for more in each of my
classmates eyes. That is when I realized that I was a good writer.
Since I was young I would read anything I could get my hands on. In 5th grade I was
reading at the level of a high school senior, and I was okay with that. Eventually I got bored of
just reading, so I would look for grammatical errors as I read. I was appalled at how many
mistakes there were in the books I was reading. I remember storming out of my room and telling
my mom that there were mistakes that there should not have been in these books. I was a junior
in high school at this point. She told me that if I was so upset by it I should do something about
it. I never gave it much thought until I was in college.

When I got to college I started my studies in Sign Language Interpreting, but I never lost
my passion for editing. I volunteered to read and edit the papers of my friends and my family.
About halfway through my second semester I realized that I was not happy with my major. At
the end of the semester I switched to the Rhetoric and Professional Writing program to become
an editor.
As a writing major, I know I dont have the best writing practices. I tend to procrastinate
until the day the paper is due, or the night before it is due if it needs to be turned in early the next
day. This is what I did with this paper. I write best when Im in a procrastination induced panic.
This does not mean that I do not care about my writing. I cherish everything I write, even if it
turns out to be complete trash. Writing is, in some way or another, putting oneself on paper. It
does not matter if the writing happens to be a research paper, or writing an autobiography. In
some way you have left your mark on the page.
In some ways Ernest Hemingway has influenced the way I write. The last research paper
we were assigned in high school was to pick an author and write a paper on how their life
influenced his or her writing. I chose Hemingway. The similarities between Hemingways
writing and his life were almost shocking. Reading some of his short stories and his novels
knowing how much of himself he put on the pages enabled me to see that writing was not always
about masking what you were feeling, but building on those feelings and ideas until you were
in the text you had just written.
I can write anywhere. The only constant in my writing process is that I need to listen to
film scores, video game scores, or the music of Ludovico Einaudi. The flow of the music allows

the words to come streaming out of me and onto the page. The film scores and video game music
vary between calm and serene, and suspenseful. This is why I like to write to them. They help
me come up with ideas when getting lost in the rhythms. Tea has always been comforting for me.
When I get stressed about writing, a hot cup of tea always calms me down and allows me to get
back into my writing bubble.
When I sit down to write, I stare into space thinking of the multitudes of words I can use
to describe the ideas in my head. I tell myself that I need to find some way to describe the way
the golden sunlight reflected off the snow late in the afternoon. I can picture how beautiful it is in
my mind, but getting my fingers to type what it looked like is a challenge. Writing to a friend in
an email or a text is a completely different story. I can vividly describe something easily and
have them know what the exact moment was like for me.
Looking back on the times that I was writing without a computer is a painful experience.
Now it is so easy for me to go to an online thesaurus and look up words to describe exactly what
I want to say. This even helps me in my eternal struggle of finding the right words to show the
images in my mind. Trying to locate the thesaurus in my house was never easy. I did not have a
computer of my own until I was a senior in high school, and trying to use the internet in my
house in the middle-of-nowhere Ohio was more of a pain than I wanted to deal with. I realized
that all of the reading I had done throughout my life expanded my vocabulary to the point that I
hardly needed to use the thesaurus when I thought I needed to.
For as long as I can remember I have always defined literacy as the ability to read and
write. Gauging literacy on ones ability to read and write is difficult. Asking someone to read

something out loud is not an effective way to see how well they can read. They may have their
own process for reading in their own mind that makes sense to them. Comprehensive tests are
slightly better, but still not a good way to judge someones ability to read. Many people interpret
the meanings differently than those around them because of experiences in their lives.
Amy Tan writes, I wanted to capture what language ability tests can never reveal: her
[Tans mother] intent, her passion, her imagery. I feel that this is good to remember when
judging someone on their ability to read or write. Being literate does not always come from
passing a test. I was always placed in the advanced classes through elementary and high school
careers. I could test well in classes, but since I went to a Private Catholic School we were
required to take many standardized tests. I was able to pass them easily, and even have scores
higher than most, but I did occasionally struggle with the way some of the questions were
worded. Not every person is able to test well. There are people I have met that are extremely
smart, but because they could not test well they were unable to get into the colleges they wanted.
The way a person writes is greatly influenced by their own life experiences. Every person
has experiences that are unique to themselves, which is why everyone has a different view of
literacy, and their own style of writing.

Emily Pizzoferrato
Laura Thompson
Intermediate Composition
Genre Comparison
Word Vomit
When writing my paper on Astrophotography I was under the impression that it was only
supposed to be a research paper on something that interested us. The instructions that we were
given were not clear as to what the actual goal was. I wrote my paper according to what I
understood it to be. The essay I wrote is a paper in the history behind astrophotography and its
importance in discovering objects in space. The intended goal was for the paper to be an
argumentative research paper, with the audience being the professor. I was able to succeed in one
of the goals.
After the paper was turned in I was told that it needed to prove some point or another.
This was an issue for me. I did not have time to rewrite the whole paper with a different topic. I
tried to make an argument with what I had, but did not do well. Towards the end of the paper I
vomited words onto the page to make a paragraph that attempted to prove a point:
Without Francois Arago requesting Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre to photograph the
moon in 1839, we would not have the advancements and understanding of the universe
and other planets that we do today. If NASA does not continually get funding for its
programs then there will be no way for humans to explore space in ways that we never
imagined that we could before.

This is not a paragraph that I am particularly proud of, nor ever will be. This was a
pathetic attempt to fix what I had previously written without doing more work than necessary.
This did not change the paper to the genre it was supposed to be. The professor told me that if
my paper was a standard research paper or a history paper I would have gotten an A on it because
of how well it was written, but because it was not, I received a C. Its still much better than I
thought I would have gotten. I think that my professor took pity on me. Im glad that he did
because I would not have passed the class otherwise.
Looking back, I can say that every paper I have written has been written to please a
certain professor. In Bartholomeas essay, he talks about a student writing for the university
faculty who would be reading his essay (Bartholomea 404). This is the case for most students, or
anyone who has to write anything; we tailor our writing to please the audience. This may cause
us to have multiple voices. We must learn to try on a variety of voices and interpretive
schemes (Bartholomea 403).
When writing for multiple classes at a time, this may be a challenge. Trying to change
our writing style/voice for multiple papers can get confusing, and may even be nearly impossible
for some people. We write in so many different genres every day; we text, write notes, send
emails, etc.. Inventing the university, according to Bartholomea, means learning to write in
different styles for each field of study. This is not limited to writing. Knowing, selecting,
evaluating, reporting, concluding, and arguing are also included in inventing the university
(Bartholomea 403).

Bartholomea refers to a college freshman as a basic writer. I think this is true for many
reasons. The first is that no matter how much you wrote previously, you still do not have the
experience of writing for multiple audiences, or writing in different genres. For the English
Composition class that the Astrophotography paper was written for was the first college class
that I needed to write in. In high school I knew the teachers well, so I was able to write how they
wanted in order to get a good grade. Writing for my college class was a challenge compared to
my high school because I was not familiar with the voice I needed to use to impress my
professor.
Astrophotography has always been one of my interests. This is shown throughout my
paper. The information I chose for this paper was of great interest to me. I tried to write the
paper to sound interesting and not bore the reader. I covered the history of the camera and how it
was first used to capture a picture of the moon:
One of the first images of the moon was taken by Daguerre himself using a
daguerreotype at the request of Francois Arago. Arago was an astronomer as well as a
politician who had been an early supporter of Daguerre. The image was clear in the
photography standards of 1838. At a very early date Arago predicted that photography
would be used to make maps of the moon (Abrahams).
From this paragraph onward I followed the camera and its use in astrophotography:
Astrophotography and photography developed and spread almost at the same rate. In
1842 the first recognizable picture of the sun was captured by Lerebours, and in 1845
with an exposure of 1/60 second, Leon Foucault and Armand Fizeau used a
daguerreotype to take a photograph of the sun, which was sharp enough to see the

sunspots. Astrophotography was becoming more and more important in astronomical

discovery.
At this point in the paper I was extremely invested. Looking back now I believe that my
investment in this paper was also one of the reasons I struggled in changing and editing it to fit
the requirements my professor had told me after I had already finished it.
At the time I took this class I was not a Rhetoric and Professional Writing major, I was
still in the Sign Language Interpreting program. I think changing majors to a writing based one
has helped me want to become a better writer and focus on my writing more. Knowing what I do
now, and having to motivation to do it, I would rewrite this paper and turn it in again. First, I
would compose a better thesis statement than:
This papers objective is to briefly outline the history and importance of photography and
astrophotography, and to show the advancements of both fields and how they worked
together to discover new objects in space. Without the continuation of funding for NASA
we will not have many more discoveries of what may be out there in space.
This is another example of word vomit that I am not proud of. The first sentence of this thesis
statement was the original one I had used for my paper, and the second sentence is the worn-out
Band-Aid that had been peeled off one too many times. There is not enough medical super glue
in the world that could have made this Band-Aid stick to hold the weak argument together.
Knowing what I do now I would completely scrap the paper and start a new one with a different
topic. Yes, the topic was enjoyable, but I think I would be stuck. This is normally not an issue for
me, but with this paper it was. I thing this may have happened to me because I chose a topic I
thoroughly enjoyed.

Writing to please a certain person, or persons, is an essential trait to have when you are
going to be composing anything in life. Writing is like composing a piece of music. You need to
make sure that it will please the intended audience, even if it is not something you particularly
enjoy doing. Every person you write for in life will expect something different from you. In life,
it is essential to be able to adapt. This is the same for writing.

Emily Pizzoferrato
Laura Thompson

Intermediate Composition
Ethnographic Research
Tumbling Through Life
Tumblr is one of those websites that you can spend hours at a time on and not see or
explore all of the different genres/posts it has to offer. I know this because I spend an unhealthy
amount of time on the website. It is not hard to get lost in the simplicity of some blogs, or the
stories of the person who runs the blog. Tumblr is a website that is versatile; people use it to
create blogs where they can express themselves. Tumblr allows people who would otherwise be
isolated to join a community of their choosing that makes them feel like they can be themselves.
Tumblr is a form of social media where users can post pictures, text, videos, etc. to a blog
they have created. Tumblr allows you to create a sort of username which allows other users to
follow your blog. Following a blog will have the posts show on your dashboard (similar to a
timeline). Adam Rifkin of Tech Crunch writes:
Tumblr does not conform to this calculus [huge audience is needed to become
successful], and the reason is that a large percentage of Tumblr users actually dont
WANT an audience. They do not want to be found, except by a few close friends who
they explicitly share one of their tumblogs with. (Rifkin, Tumblr is Not What You
Think)
I joined Tumblr about two years ago. I started with a blog where I reblog and post
anything that I feel the need to. Most of what I have on my blog is posts that have made me
smile, feel nostalgic, or I feel I relate to in some way. This was my way of expressing myself and

communicating my thoughts. Tumblr was a place I felt comfortable expressing these thoughts
and feelings when I could not talk to my friends about it; on Tumblr, you can revel in
anonymity, say whatever you want without fear of it going on your permanent record. You can
start as many Tumblrs as you like, one for each slice of your personality (Reeve, The Secret
Lives of Tumblr Teens). Tumblr user fanbasesohmy73, a close friend of mine, writes:
The Tumblr community has become an almost therapeutic community for me, it is
somewhere where someone who is awkward in most aspects can go and express their
feelings through art, photography, song, and writings and feel like they're being accepted
in some way. Unlike most communities who close off their different values in groups,
Tumblr is open to everyone and all categories are open for discussion. We're all silly
humans trying to move on with our lives, and having the Tumblr community to back us
up is extremely helpful. (Phillips)
I currently have three blogs that I run: my personal blog, a blog that I occasionally post
advice for people in long distance relationships, and a blog on astrophotography that is quite
popular now. My personal blog (knittingandtea96) mainly consists of images and text posts I
have reblogged. There is not much of my own content on the page, but I do occasionally post a
picture that I have taken. These pictures are normally taken from the sides of backroads in the
rural area I am from.
The long distance relationship (ldrthoughts9414) blog is almost full of my own posts. I
post pictures and text posts detailing certain aspects of my relationship and/or advice for others.
The tone I write in is always very similar to the way I speak. These posts are meant for others in
long distance relationships who might need encouragement to continue the relationship, need
help getting through a rough patch, or need general advice in relationships.

The last blog I created (space-photography) started off as a class project. It was for my
English Composition class I took my freshman year of college. For this class we needed create
some other way to express and prove our thesis besides writing a paper. I chose to make a blog
on astrophotography and NASA. I occasionally post some of my own astrophotography, but the
blog mainly consists of photos that I have reblogged from other astrophotography blogs and/or
blogs that create posts that detail the happenings of space exploration. The blog quickly gained
followers, and now has more than 2,000 followers. I still keep the blog active by posting at least
two items a day.
Tumblr is full of abbreviations, slang, and jargon. Some examples are URL, your
username added to the rest of the Tumblr web address; shitpost, which is posting something
completely off topic, and sometimes even extremely strange to confuse and distract people; ship,
short for relationship and often used to show that you want two people/characters to be together;
OTP, one true pairing, often used with ship; SMH, shaking my head; gif, which is a short video
that loops for eternity; birb, which is just bird; and many more. There was phase which is still
circulating on some blogs, but is dying down, where Tumblr users would add sn- to the
beginning of words to make it have something to do with snails. These were called snail memes,
or snemes. Beautiful became sneutiful, snarty: snail party, Sweet Caroline: Snweet Snaroline.
These are just a few examples. Many considered these to be a form of shitposting. Another trend
that branched off from the snemes was a jean meme. It was the same concept, but instead of sn-,
j- would be used. Examples are jort: jean short, joots: jean boots, jants: jean pants, jats: jean hats,
jarks: jean sharks, and my personal favorite, Jalexander Jamilton: Alexander Hamilton (both

snail memes and jean memes can be searched on Tumblr if you would like to read through more
examples).
The terminology used on Tumblr does not limit the usage of the website to anyone. It is
easy to catch on and start using yourself. Tumblr does have a silly jargon that comes along with
the website, but it is often caught onto very quickly because it's nothing deep or personal
(Phillips). Tumblr user cannibalistic-tendencies, another one of my friends, told me in an
interview that I [he] does not think the jargon limits inclusion, or excludes anyone purposefully,
but rather becomes part of the adopted culture of Tumblr. There arent any overarching themes
followed by the jargon of Tumblr, but rather a complex network of interconnected
accents/dialects (Griffin).
Tumblr includes a wide variety of blogs. These can range from a humor blog, to a blog
where the user posts screenshots from a video game, to a poetry blog. They are all different ways
for the user to express themselves to a community of followers that have the same feelings
towards the certain topics. As Phillips stated in his interview, Tumblr is a place where people go
to feel accepted no matter what they are involved in, support, like, or have strong feelings
towards. Tumblr became a place where I felt I could talk about anything and not be judged for it.
Works Cited
Griffin, Nicholas. Personal Interview. 22 March 2016.
This interview was conducted in person. Nick was asked questions about how Tumblr
affected his life. He explained that Tumblr is a place where he feels welcome in all of the
Tumblr communities he belongs to.

Phillips, Andrew. Personal Interview. 22 March 2016.

Andrew and I conducted this interview over the phone. He was asked the same questions
as Nick, and gave similar answers. Andrews answers were a little more thoughtful.
Andrew explained how he feels that Tumblr has made his online experience more
bearable than if he were not welcomed into a Tumblr community.
Reeve, E. The Secret Life of Tumblr Teens. New Republic. 17 Feb, 2016. Website.
<https://newrepublic.com/article/129002/secret-lives-tumblr-teens>
This website/blog post is somewhat negative towards Tumblr users, but the quotations
that were used in my paper were not. I felt that they explained the Tumblr community
very well.
Rifkin, A. Tumblr is Not What You Think. TechCrunch. 18 Feb, 2013. Website.
<http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/18/tumblr-is-not-what-you-think/>
This article was positive towards Tumblr. It outlined the uses of Tumblr and how people
can fit in on the website.

Emily Pizzoferrato
Laura Thompson
Intermediate Composition
Reflection
Writing

Coming into this class I was a strong writer, I always have been. I did not think I would
learn much, but I did. I did not learn much about writing in the class, but I learned about how
other people write. Reading the essays by other authors every week helped me grasp a better
understanding of what it means to write.
Writing has always come easy to me, and I take pride in that. I love grammar and
punctuation. It sounds extremely nerdy, but its what I enjoy. When I first came to college I did
not start off in the Rhetoric and Professional Writing major that I am in now. I think what made
me realize that I needed to switch was my peers constantly asking me to edit their papers and
essays. I did some research and found my current major. After reading the description I fell in
love. I knew that this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.
I did not know what job I wanted to do with my major. This was a problem. I did not
know if I wanted to write, to edit, or to do something completely different. One thing I knew I
did not want to do was teach. I finally settled on the decision of becoming an editor for a
publishing house. Some of the concepts that I have learned in this course will aid me in the
future. Not only will I need to be able to know how to edit and revise peoples writing that is
more by the book, but I will also need to be able to edit writing that does not follow rules of
grammar at all.
When editing I realize that I tend to reword sentences to my style of writing. This has
always been a challenge for me to overcome, but Im slowly doing it. Some of essays that we

read in class have helped me realize this. Tans essay about literacy and Bartholomeas essay
about writing to please certain readers helped me understand this.
I feel that my writing has changed for the better through the course of this class. Im not
sure if it is because of the reading we did in class, or because I am maturing and writing more
frequently for other classes at the same time as this one. I am able to tell that when writing I am
able to get to the minimum page requirement more efficiently and without using excessive
pleonasms. I have always struggled with getting the length to where it needs to be because I have
always been able to get my point across without adding unnecessary fluff.
Im really glad that I had to opportunity to take this class. It changed my writing for the
better, and I feel that I will be using these skills for the rest of my life.