What I have learned

Previous to this class I have taken only one other college level writing class, that being UWRT

1101, and this class was extremely easy to me because it did not consist of critical reflection, or

writing mechanics. The fact that even I got an A in that class should be a clear indicator of the

level of difficulty we were being presented with in our writings. UWRT 1102 was not at all the

same, and the wake up call I needed as a freshman. Throughout the spring semester in this class I

have learned how to expand upon the smallest detail, how to properly write a rhetorical essay,

and create multi-modal presentations. We took a much deeper look at mechanics of writing as

opposed to my previous writing course which mostly focused on creative writing as compared to

this class and exploring an inquiry. This class also offered much more writing assistance which I

found necessary when it came to tips and tricks in our multi-modal project, and also when it

came time to actually design our websites. The past semester in this class I have learned more

writing mechanics and technique than any other english or writing course I have ever taken.

How I learned it

We were assigned numerous writings for us to conduct, as well as to look over and then write

upon, all of which would somehow end up helping us when it came to our final portfolio. Below

is a quote from blog post two regarding peer review.

The most challenging part of peer review in my opinion is the work to be

done after the review; you can have someone sit there and write comments all over
your paper, but until you go back and try to incorporate those suggestions into your

piece the review was pointless.

Peer review was something I had never been used to doing in high school and even in my UWRT

1101 class. Post UWRT 1102 I can confidently say that I have been given the tools in this class

to effectively assist other writers in responsibly critiquing and assisting in the editing of papers.

Another thing I feel I did well was participate actively in group discussion and brainstorming. A

classmate of mine named Rob agreed with me in that this style of learning of was much more

complex than it was in UWRT 1101, we enjoyed our time in both.

Revising and Editing

One thing I have not done my due diligence on in this class is having my work when I am

supposed to. This was unfortunate when it came to group group editing and brainstorming

opportunities so I often found myself playing catch up during that time. Now I understand I

stated above that I was an active participant in group work which I understand why that may be

hard for you to understand because I did not have my work sometimes, but I did try to assist

others with their papers as much as possible and thats all that I really cared about in those

sessions. This is a quote from my FPE that I was suggested to edit.

I generally read or see something that grabs my attention and at the point I just

have to pursue. I decided to change to Generally when I read something that

does a good job of grabbing my attention, I will likely finish out the reading in order

to see if this a topic I would be interested in further researching.

That edit was suggested to me by a classmate and a friend named Sara, and it just goes to show

that you do need someone to go over your writing most times and make sure that there are no

silly mistakes or poorly worded sentences.

Developing Curiosity Essay

When we were first charged with this assignment I surprisingly thought of nothing at all, usually

when it comes to questions I have some loaded and ready to go. I initially planned to write about

the social inequality that manifested itself in the University setting, however after a first draft I

was encouraged to change my topic to something that Ms. Ingram had found out I had a previous

interest in: comedy. I had previously written about a stand-up comedian (Jim Gaffigan) in my

previous writing class and my previous teacher had managed to talk to Ms. Ingram about some

of my writing in his class. So I took the genre of comedy and thought about something that was a

hot topic and was fresh and new, and immediately my mind ran to Donald Trump

impersonations. From that point, with the assistance of Ms. Ingram (I promise I did some work

it wasnt all her) I came to the thesis statement How comedy and the media played a deciding

role in the 2016 Presidential Election. A direct quote from my essay talks the multi-modal

aspect of this aspect, below.

This question is complex enough to build a project around, and gives much

opportunity to show different points of view, as well as to incorporate different

genre forms such as pop culture pieces written by myself and videos compiled by

me.
The multi-modal part of this portfolio will allow me to further illustrate and explain why my

thesis statement is indisputable while providing readers with more of a visual to understand

where this is all coming from.

Annotated Bibliography

Oddly enough this portion of the project was the most challenging to me for a couple reasons,

those being it was the most time consuming finding sources, and then converting them into

citations, and from there pulling a summary from the article, and finally typing out my thoughts

and connections to the information I had collected. I would compare creating a bibliography to a

cooking a meal in that:

1. Step one you must first find your recipe, or in this case your research.
2. Step two being the INGREDIENTS, the most important part of every meal is the

good ingredients, for me it was the summarized information from the article. We must

use good ingredients because let's face it; bad ingredients equals bad food (unless youre

on Chopped).
3. Finally step three would be the cooking and preparation of your ingredients, really

identifying how certain information can be used to better your argument and give the

reader a full stomach of knowledge.

Properly being able to pull information from a website or scholarly source was another tool I

learned in UWRT 1102 and from Ms. Ingram that I am sure I will be using in higher level

classes.
Multi-Genre Project

As I previously stated above, this part of the project was the most interesting to me due to the

fact that I am a marketing major, and reaching an audience is what I am all about. For my project

I immediately wanted to talk about the explosion of Trump impersonations that had erupted after

the beginning debates of the election. Television broadcasts on regular television shows had even

consumed themselves in the political mockery that was taking place and that was something I

tried to address very clearly in my presentation which was a powerpoint (not an oh great, a

powerpoint) but something that I feel will keep my target audience engaged and actively

listening. For my second visual I decided to do an article similar to one that can be found on sites

like Esquire, and Rolling Stone. I felt this was a good approach to take because I write in

more informal tone as compared to the rest of project, I wrote the piece as if I was every other

journalist out there.

One thing that surprised myself and many other people is how in the hell did

Donald Trump win this presidential election? Being a registered republican myself, I

will personally say I do not agree with some of the actions and beliefs of our current

president, and I am amongst many.

My main thought process behind writing in this style was that I wanted people to read this piece

as if they were having a conversation with me, and to know that I am writing this piece based off

of some personal beliefs in conjunction with heavily researched information. And not to harp too

heavily on this but I cannot reiterate enough how much I enjoyed the two pieces I created and I

hope my readers can take away from them as much as possible.

Blog Posts 1-6

The almost weekly assignment of generating a blog post normally consisting of a reading review

along with some form of reflection was a major help in piecing together our essays and multi-

modal projects. The readings ranged from Shitty first drafts, something that was all too close to

home for me, all the way to being able to properly identify your audience in your multi-genre

project. These posts were exceptionally helpful if you constructed your portfolio while

completing them in that you were slowly piecing together a puzzle with all the answers. Below is

a quote with some FPE tips and tricks from my blog post number six.

Something I will have to incorporate into my thinking while I write my FPE is that

the reader is not in my head, the only thing they know about me and my writing is

what I tell them as opposed to them being able to see my mental process.

Being able to go back in the posts and look for pieces of information provided to us in the

readings was a massive help when it came to touching up my essay and visual projects.

Midterm

The midterm reflection was a good source of inspiration in my head to drastically change how I

was conducting myself in an academic sense. It was a massive wake up call for me to get my

mind back into writing like it was in the fall semester and be successful in this class. I really

appreciated the face to face appointment I had with Ms. Ingram in order to personally go over

some things I felt I was faulting on as well as some of the things I was doing well. Below is a

quote that resonated with me constantly throughout the spring semester and can be found in my

midterm.
 In the words of the great Michael Scott, Sometimes Ill start a sentence and I

dont even know where its going I just hope I find it along the way.

Writers Choice Artifacts

Process Work

My first process artifact was a document that we worked on one evening in class when we were

asked to talk to people around the room on how I might most effectively collect data for my

inquiry topic. I collected answers from Omari, Emily, Tish, Rob, and Gabby; all of which offered

viable options on how to gather information.

My second piece is a draft of my initial thoughts behind my thesis question. I believe this was a

lame first attempt at a draft that I did not get to finish, although it did further guide me in what is

now finished essay.

One thing that was clear during the election was the satire, and comedy found

everywhere you turned - rough draft

My final process work was from a very early brainstorming session we held in class that was

purely built around trying to condense our would be thesis question. As you can reference the

article in this site, you will see that my document illustrates my SECOND attempted thesis topic,

that topic being teacher turnover rate in below poverty line school districts.
Feedback

We did a series of peer workshops in this class and assisted each other a lot in our various

writings which much of the class benefitted from. Both of my artifacts regarding feedback were

around my original thesis of the developing curiosity essay. Feedback played a critical role in

this instance in that it actually pushed me towards completely changing my inquiry topic from

social injustice in university to what it is now. The first document being blog post one was

supposed to make me think about something that was interesting to me and at that moment that

was it. But, obviously I decided to change topics to write about something I can relate to more.

Overall, the feedback provided to me by peers and by Ms. Ingram was very helpful with

furthering my paper.

P.S. I think I developed a doable inquiry question for you on the bottom of pg 1. -

Suzanne Ingram

Writers Notebook

My first article in my writers notebook section is my Mini Research Report #2. In this report I

described an evening I spent attending my very first professional basketball game in Uptown,

Charlotte. It was an unbelievable experience for a mere ten dollars, something I suggest everyone

with a UNC Charlotte ID attend. One quote I enjoy from that writing is as follows.

Having been born in Charlotte, and currently residing here, I felt it was my civic

duty, more so my birthright to go see those Hornets play.

My second writing was a dear reader letter discussing my thoughts on the current state of my

PFE draft, send help, would have been a proper greeting at this point for me.
Wild Card

When I was assigned an ethnographic project in my anthropology class a day after spring break

my mind sprinted to one thing: the Champions League Futbol match I had seen the previous

week in London, U.K. I chose to attempt to outline the cultural differences between American

and the U.K., albeit they are very similar countries. I spoke about every aspect of the trip and in

particular gave in my opinion what was a very detailed description of what is the Super Bowl of

sports to soccer fans across the world. I wrote an ethnography in my previous UWRT class so I

luckily felt very prepared for this. One particular memorable event was the Bayern fans at the

start of the soccer match.

My family and I sitting in the Arsenal fan section, got to see the Bayern section of

fans rain hundreds of rolls of toilet paper onto the field at the start of the match.

It was truly an amazing experience and blessing to be in such a place and I cannot wait until I

can write about such a time again.

Make Up

For my make up credit I chose to select my Reader Response Letter #2 which was a good

reminder of how to go about the beginning stages or your essay. It provided actual steps (with

your own interpretation) and gave me a more generic outline of how to organize my information

that I would be collecting. Below is a quote of one of my struggles regarding the start of a past

assignment.

Before actually going ahead and starting my paper, I should have had a

better grasp on what rhetorical essays were actually about. Even after I did do
some research into what they were and looked at sample rhetorical analysis online,

I still could not wrap my head around what they were.

3 Key Concepts

1. The first key concept I struggled with the most had to hands down be rhetorical

knowledge. I was even exposed to this subject last class and assigned a paper on, and

somehow managed to squeeze out something deserving of a B, but I still had no idea

what it was. I worked with the idea of rhetorical analysis when I prompted to go back

over some of my own writing and think about why I said things the way I did. After

doing this a couple times I believe I now have a firm grasp of how to conduct such an

analysis.
2. Something that we are required to do throughout this project is use quotations

when referencing certain people or articles and give the stated information an in-page

citation somewhat. I have never liked doing this and have tried to avoid pieces of data

where I would be required to do so. Luckily, via requirement by Ms. Ingram, I feel that

this portfolio has taught me how to incorporate quotations into text more.
3. Finally critical reading. Reading has honestly never been something I have

enjoyed and I cannot explain why. Something about sitting still for that long and just

analyzing words makes me want to do anything but that. Even more honestly I still do not

like to read to this day, but I do understand that when it needs to be done, it will be. I

hope I can develop the love for it soon, I cant imagine the reading course load in the

coming years.
Organization and Design

When I viewed other peoples portfolios I immediately began trying to pick and choose what

aspects I liked from each of their respective websites. I think that something I want to represent

in my website is the lightheartedness I carry with me constantly. If I can manage to make you

laugh anywhere throughout this portfolio then that is an A for me in and of itself. I wanted to

keep it clean and avoid stuff to distract the reader from what I am actually presenting to them. I

think it turned out well and it is exactly what I wanted.

The Grade

If Im being honest, the majority of this portfolio was created within the last three weeks of the

spring semester, procrastination is a serious vice of mine. I did however spend countless hours on

this PFE, and constructing this website to show you (Ms. Ingram) that I do care about this class

and what it has to offer us down the road. I am not going to say I deserve an A because I

looked at Noah Eldreths portfolio for inspiration constantly, but I am hoping for something close

to it. I really did try my heart out with every assignment here, and I hope it reflects in my work to

you as well.
Future Uses

There is not a doubt in my mind that I will be referencing this very document in a matter of

months into my sophomore year of college. After taking this class I firmly believe that every

individual should be able to neatly, and logically form a thesis statement and conduct research

with that statement in mind and present it to an audience. We can use this same mindset for all

projects realistically, not just limit it to english papers or papers matter of fact.