My Improvements Throughout the Semester

I practiced this core value with the rewriting I did with my essays that went into my portfolio. I chose to rewrite all three of my essays even though only my Causal and Definition rewrites went into my portfolio. But this is how I portrayed the recursive aspect of the first core value. The social and interactive ways I revised my essays was how I developed the information that went into my rewrites and drafts. Finding out information on ocean pollution was very helpful and beneficial but it was a lot of hard work. Finding the information and applying it in the right way took a bit of time so that is how I focused on the first core value. This is the link to my definition rewrite.

Core Value 1. My work demonstrates that I used a variety of social and interactive practices that involve recursive stages of exploration, discovery, conceptualization, and development.

Core Value 2. My work demonstrates that I read critically, and that I placed texts into conversation with one another to create meaning by synthesizing ideas from various discourse communities. 

I used core value two when I was accumulating information from various sources as I was putting my thoughts together. This showed my ability to synthesize because almost all the sources I used tied into my main points that ocean pollution had many negative impacts on the environment, economy, and to humans. Reading critically was a major point in my research because using 15 or more sources proved to be difficult for my topic. This is because juggling all that information together and making it fit into my central topic had to make sense to someone who might not have known that much about the topic. I had to make sure the information and sources I used went together to make sense for the reader. I have my annotated Bibliography linked to show this.

Core Value 3. My work demonstrates that I rhetorically analyzed the purpose, audience, and contexts of my own writing and other texts and visual arguments.

Core value three was most prevalent in my rebuttal essay and rewrite of my research paper. This is because I had to constantly evaluate who I was talking to and the purpose for my claims. The feedback I got for this essay was that I was offending the reader by saying they were apart of the problem regarding ocean pollution. My point was to raise awareness by letting people know that their actions contribute the massive amounts of plastic found in the oceans. But I believe the way I was going about it might have weakened my point because if the reader feels offended it might stop them from reading your argument, or not believing it in general. So for me, keeping the audience in mind was a task that proved difficult for. I attached my rebuttal rewrite for insight on how I did this.

Core Value 4: My work demonstrates that I have met the expectations of academic writing by locating, evaluating, and incorporating illustrations and evidence to support my own ideas and interpretations.

Core Value four was to me seeing how all my work came together in the end. My portfolio as a whole is an indication of meeting the academic standards and requirements of whole writing piece. But I will focus on my visual rhetoric assignment and how I met the academic requirements and more. The task was to pick a thirty second ad and pause that ad second by second to evaluate what was going on in the video without sound. This seemed very tedious a first but then after a few seconds I learned the purpose of having sharp analytical skills and was able to hone in even deeper on my video to pick up on the smaller things that might have seemed irrelevant. I learned a lot about picking up on smaller details and this example of how I met the academic requirement for core value four is linked with my visual rhetoric rewrite assignment.

Core Value 5. My work demonstrates that I respect my ethical responsibility to represent complex ideas fairly and to the sources of my information with appropriate citation.

I know I use core value five throughout all my work in my essays for the portfolio. I know I used proper citation and sources in my work before the portfolio as well, but using annotated bibliography for my essays gave me a deeper connection to my sources because I wanted everything to come together. As a writer, I always want the sources and citations to be an addition to my ideas, not take away from them by being the main focus of my paper. I know in my research paper, I had various sources that talked about ocean pollution and using the ransom note exercise in class, I was able to piece together where I wanted to take my audience first before I led them to the destination I wanted them to go. I have my Causal essay rewrite linked represent how I did this and portrayed the fifth core value.