Ellie Ostler

THOUGHT FLOWERS
In my mind there are two different types of people. One type sees the big picture and
views various aspects of life holistically. The second type sees the minute details that work
together to make the big picture. The way I look at life is through the second type. Just as George
OKeeffe said above, Nobody sees a flower really; it is so small. We havent time, and it takes
time to see [] This quote explains the time and effort required for details- that are usually
overlooked- to be seen. My e-portfolio was made to focus on the details. This essay is designed
to help explain the questions so that each detail can be understood for what I intended detail to
represent.

Home: The intention for this page was to invite my viewers to learn a little about me.
Although this may seem obvious, I wanted put a face to the writer for my audience so my
work was not just seen as words, but as artifacts created for different purposes. My work
is not the meant to be viewed simply as the result of a prompt for a grade, the importance
of my e-portfolio is in the thought and design behind each concept to help cohesively
organize everything into the big picture of my overall work.
o Design:
The title that consists of my name, flowers, and stripes is shown on each page of
my e-portfolio. Each of these items were used to represent who I am. This can be
further explained in the About section of this essay. The pictures of me and
descriptions of my e-portfolio and self were organized to resemble that my e-portfolio
is organized into sections. How I have blocked these items relates to how I have
organized certain pieces of work into categories (or pages) of pieces that relate to
each other. Each page contains a collection of various work that make up an
important part of my learning process of the semester. As a part of my description, I
included a link to my e-portfolio from last semester. I chose to include this as my
wild card because it shows the progress I have made as a writer from last semester to
this semester. I discuss more of this progress in my midterm by explaining,
[]when we were told we could choose any website creator we preferred, instead of
choosing weebly (which I have used in the past) I chose to use Wix in order to get out
of my comfort zone.

About: If you are reading this essay you are on the about page! I chose this page to be the
description of my entire portfolio. After putting a face to the work, I want my audience to
be able to read this as if they are being given a map to what is going on in my mind. As
you read this, you are not just having the chance to make your own thoughts and
judgements but I would like you to see my work for what I have intended it to be. With
this information you will hopefully be open to see the details of what we do not normally
have time to seek.
o Overall Design:

Ellie Ostler

As for the heading title of each page, I wanted a portion of myself included on
each page as a reminder to seek the purpose behind each item included. I do not mean
this in a conceited way, I simply intend for the purpose of each detail made to be
sought and I am the person that created said details. This will hopefully remind the
reader of part of my personality to further put a voice behind the words on each of
these pages. So this essay- along with the rest of my work- is no longer a white page
full of black words, but a gentle voice quietly echoing through your head as if I am
reading each word to you. The quote placed in the pink and green banner is made to
be an eye catcher. It is centered and big enough to view while still looking at the page
as a whole. In order to read the quote the reader must focus on reading the quote, in
order to understand the purpose of the quote this essay has to be read. Moreover, the
quote in itself is a detail that unrolls further details it is representing. Time is then
taken to read what is written which is required to fully see what is so small (the words
written in this essay and work on each page to come).

Blogs: The majority of the semester was devoted to what we later discovered could be
creating either two multi-genre projects with a reflection or a traditional research paper.
This page consists of not only the blogs throughout the semester but other artifacts that
all relate to each other. Each blog an artifact contains a date. Dates are very important for
the organization of this timeline of work to show how my thoughts and decisions changed
throughout the semester.
o Blogs Rough Draft:
Although I started saving my blogs in a word document because I felt the need to
keep a backup of my work (before putting my trust into the temperamental wix blog
post). The rough draft of my blogs shows what adjustments in thoughts or side notes I
excluded from my final blog posts that were a part of my writing process. This post is
a great way to compare the final product of each blog post to the rough draft that each
post started as. For instance, the main difference between my blogs rough draft and
the rest of my blogs are that I have added titles, pictures, and changed the font of each
blog in order to have a multi-modal presentation of blogs. On our class website Ms.
Ingram explains that e-portfolios are multi-modal:
Were going to use 5 terms to help us view texts multi-modally []
- Linguistic Mode: word choice; the delivery of spoken or written text; the
organization of writing or speech into phrases, sentences, paragraphs, etc.; the
development and coherence of individual words and ideas.
- Visual Mode: color, layout, style, size, perspective.
- Aural Mode: music; sound effects; ambient noise/sounds; silence; tone of voice in
spoken language; volume of sound; emphasis on accent.
- Gestural Mode: facial expressions; hand gestures; body language; interaction
between people.
- Spatial Mode: arrangement; organization; proximity between people or objects
As shown in blog #5, I used modes such as spatial and visual in order for me to get
out of my comfort zone of what I would normally put in a blog post:
ENTERTAINMENT:

Ellie Ostler
*The genres in this category are rhetorically similar in purpose and audience with intent to entertain.
Blogs - The majority of blogs I read are to entertain. Even the blogs we write in class are in such a
relaxed tone and are so personable that I consider them to be a form of entertainment.

o Blog posts #1-9:

My blogs show the process of what direction I planned for my research to go in as
different questions were asked to be decided upon and finalized for our overall
research assignment. For each blog, I chose a picture that I felt best represented what
each blog assignment was looking for. Looking back to Blog #1 I can remember Ms.
Ingram telling us, You do not need to come up with a question right away. Do some
research first that has to do with things you are interested. Maybe think of your major
or groups you are interested and go from there. From this we had time to do some
research. Once blog post #1 came along, I decided to take Ms. Ingrams advice:
Since this is college and I am devoting the next six years of my life to studying as
much as possible to become a Physician Assistant, I felt inclined to create questions
from this particular interest of mine. Although I was unsure about what that question
was, Ms. Ingram steered us in the right direction for us to take responsibility of our
learning. This first blog post allowed for us to sort through out thoughts before
having to make any major decisions. Looking back, I remember a turning point in the
semester was when we were asked to take action in blog #6. In this post I explained,
My action was to comment on Nathaniels blog post #5 (well, more like his entire
website so far including the survey). As I mentioned in his blog, I felt entertained and
that I kept wanting to read more of what he had to say [] he really writes for his
audience. The audience of our blogs are mainly Ms. Ingram and the rest of this class.
It may seem obvious, but the part I usually mess up on is keeping that audience in
mind while writing. Yes, it seems straight forward; however, the majority of this class
may agree that finding and speaking to your audience is a difficult task to accomplish.
Nathaniels posts show that were not supposed to write just as if were staring at a
blank word document before posting it to our sites to get the work done, we are
supposed to write as if we are looking out into the tiny crowd of our classroom as we
type as if we are speaking to them directly. Just for a glimpse of Nathaniels
personality included in his e-portfolio here is his description of himself as the writer:
AUTHOR: The College Freshman for the 2014-1015 year. Now tackles or more so clinging on for

dear life through UWRT 1102. Through designing concepts, collaborating ideas of my
own and inspiration from others, and coming up with an audience, I was on my way
to gathering my thoughts enough to prepare myself to create my final research
project.
o Pre-Midterm Feedback:
I found this feedback from one of our warm ups to be very helpful for me in the
midst of my writing process. I am the type of person to always benefit from someone
reassuring me that I am on the right track. A part of my writing process is to
brainstorm. This sometimes leads to overthinking or getting too caught up in the
thousands of ideas jumbling around in my head. As Ms. Ingram said, If youre
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thinking, wondering, and wobbling youre good. Youll pull it together when its
time.
o Midterm:
As mentioned in the directions of our midterm assignment, the objective was to
Analyze and reflect on your thinking, learning, and your work in this class. This
was done by quoting our own work, choosing 5 key concepts to write about and
reflecting/ analyzing our progress over the first half of the semester. Janet Emig
defines what writing does for students in Writing as a Mode of Learning: Writing
serves learning uniquely because writing as process-and product possesses a cluster
of attributes that correspond uniquely to certain powerful learning strategies.
Powerful strategies such as the 10 key concepts. From these concepts we were told to
choose several as our strengths and weaknesses. I explained in my midterm, As for
my strengths, I am best at making connections, getting out of my comfort zone, and
taking responsibility for my own learning. [] I tend to struggle with rhetorical
awareness and the revision portion of the writing process.
o Midterm Feedback:
This feedback helped me know where I stood as far as what I needed to work on
and how I was doing in the class halfway through the semester. With a couple
absences, I was slightly behind as far as meeting what I had set as my goal for the end
of the semester. However, this feedback helped me feel determined to do all that I
could in order to accomplish what goals I set for myself. Ms. Ingram continually
encourages us and motivated me by mentioning, I see your dedication and effort.
Right now, your participation grade is keeping you at a B, but I know youll pull your
grade up. I have always appreciated honesty. As a perfectionist, I tend to set my
standards too high, especially for myself. If I do not meet those goals I sometimes
make the situation worse than it needs to be. With Ms. Ingrams helpful insight and
encouragement, I can confidently say that I was able to refocus on showing my
determination of achieving my goals through my work and that I intended on
becoming an A student.
o In Class Assignment:
When we were instructed to explain our strengths and weaknesses from our
midterms, I realized that I needed to go back to adjust my midterm. When asked to
look back at our work and establish our strengths and weaknesses, I realized that
rather than multi-modality being one of my strengths, making connections was a
better key concept that fit my work. For example, for my midterm I related enjoying
trying new things in writing to my everyday life: Im the type of person to order
something off of the diner menu that I cant pronounce (within reason) because it may
be even better than what Im used to. The final draft of my midterm contains
highlighted portions from what I changed since the last time this artifact was
evaluated.
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Research: This page includes detailed work completed over the semester which helped
me complete my final research projects (shown on the next page).
o Annotated Bibliography:
Oh, the annotated bibliography. One of the largest pieces of work completed over
the semester. I adore the organizational possibilities that are able to flourish from a
well put together 3 column notes of research. This was by far the most helpful piece
of work in my entire research process. What can I say? I am a nerd for organization. I
get excited at the thought of color coding or changing the font of work in order to
achieve a neatly put together concise chart of information. For me, it makes the bland
overkill of the droning and mundane voice that I hear from reading stacks upon stacks
of information come to life with color, fancy typing, and summarizations. As I
mentioned in various artifacts, my most useful source of information was that from
the article Balanced Living by B. Lemley. As I stated in my annotated
bibliography, This website was made for the same audience I have intended to reach
out to. Lemley uses the same tactics to appeal to his audience that I have planned
throughout the course of the semester. This website not only was packed full of
useful information, but it was essentially a template for what strategies I could use to
help convince my audience of why integrative medicine is the best form of treatment.
o Warm Ups:
I chose to include all of my warm ups on my e-portfolio to show the progress of
my thoughts and decisions made over the semester. However, I chose two specific
warm ups to focus on as two artifacts. Overall, even though the least amount of time
was spend on these warm ups (on average, we spent about 5 minutes per warm up), I
surprisingly made most of the major decisions for my research from the warm up
questions. The two warm ups I would like to focus on are from the dates 3/17/15 and
3/19/15. The warm up from 3/17/15 is when I decided my thesis. The questions for
this warm up were, (A) How did you move your inquiry question into a
thesis statement (claim)? What is your thesis statement (claim) for this draft? It might
not be finalized yet. We call this a "working thesis" since it's the one you're working
with right now. (B) What do you like about your draft, and what questions/concerns
do you have about it? I answered these questions by saying, Integrative medicine is
the best form of treatment because it is the most effective course of treatment
available. Reasons [] safe, evidence-based, and personalized. This may not seem
like much, but this was where I decided what I was going to base my entire research
on to support. For warm up 3/19/15, we were asked to define our audience. I stated,
My audience, skeptical patients, are people that either strongly believe in
conventional medicine or strongly believe in alternative medicine. Either way, I will
have to convince them that combining the two methods is the best treatment option.
My common ground is that I at least half agree with my audience. This was, yet
again, another ground breaking realization. My mind at this point shifted to focus
information found in my research to support factors that would help establish a
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common ground between my opinion and my audience. These two warm ups helped
steer my overall direction of my entire research projects.

Projects: This page of my research multi-genre projects is what the majority of my work
from the semester relates to. I wanted this to be my final page so that all of my work
throughout the semester can be seen leading up to these final products. Moreover, this
page really focuses on the final stages of my research writing process. This page is
devoted to the drafts of my final pieces of work.
o Reflection Draft 1:
This rough draft is an excellent example of what most of my first drafts look like.
My plan of attack for completing first drafts consists of answering any/all questionsif possible at the time- and just getting down information for me to sort through in my
next draft. Most of this draft may not make sense to anyone other than me, but that is
all that is needed for a first draft. From this, I was able to re-evaluate my thoughts to
create my final draft of my reflection.
o Reflection Final Draft:
I found that the reflection of my multi-genre projects was the key to
understanding my choices made as a writer in completing my final research projects.
Just as this essay is necessary in understanding the details of my e-portfolio, this
reflection was needed to understand the details of my multi-genre projects.
o Multi-Genre Brainstorming:
This process work was much different than any other draft I have done in the past.
Instead of typing a plan of attack for my multi-genre projects, I felt that I could best
display my ideas by creating a brainstorming blue print of what I planned to do for
my final projects. As you can see, I started by organizing different genre options and
creating a sketch along with a description of what I could accomplish with each
genre. In the end, I basically made a color coded pro con list with pictures of four
options of genres to choose from. I chose the two highlighted genres: the Brochure
and the Advertisement.
o Research Poster:
Speaking from someone that is not the most technologically advanced, I felt the
need to push myself out of my comfort zone and create a digital advertisement.
Although I did not include as much information as I originally intended, I decided to
stay true to the definition of this genre and focus on the spatial and visual appeal of
this project. I chose to include necessary information (definitions) along with graphs
and statistics to show the growth of integrative medicine in the contemporary
American society. I chose to keep my advertisement concise and visually appealing to
invite anyone that passes it to read it. Because integrative medicine includes
conventional and natural/alternative methods of medicine, I found it fitting to display
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the growth of medicine through pictures of nature to tie into the natural side of
integrative medicine. The growth of this type of medicine is also displayed in the
statistics of how much this type of medicine continues to grow in todays society.
o Research Brochure:
Because I was limited in showing as much information as I had previously desired
in my research advertisement, I chose to focus more on the information in this genre
while still staying true to the definition of a brochure. Like the research
advertisement, I was still unable to include as much information as I had originally
planned. However, I found that this amount of information displayed is fitting for my
audience. I felt that I accomplished a better outcome that what I originally intended
because I was able to include enough information that would not overwhelm my
audience while being able to display it in a spatially and visually appealing genre. I
chose to organize each page of the brochure to subtly steer my audience in the
direction of my thesis. By starting with questions addressing the common
misconceptions of various types of medicine to the pros and cons of each type of
medicine to them information supporting integrative medicine, I feel that I
successfully created a project that will convince my audience that integrative
medicine is worth pursuing as the best form of treatment.
As a detail oriented person and a perfectionist, I find that reflection and self-evaluation
are key for taking responsibility for my own learning. Over the semester, I feel that I have truly
pushed myself to become a student with the characteristics described in the 10 key concepts of
this course (the key concepts are italicized throughout this essay to emphasize my growth
throughout the semester). Because of this, I feel that I deserve an A in the class. My e-portfolio
displays my dedication and amount of work I have put into this course. Also, I have learned to
not just work for a grade, but to put forth enough effort that it shows in my work as a reflection
of who I am as a person and as a student. I hope whoever reads this will achieve the
understanding of my writing choices with what I intended for with the details I have included in
my work.