Reflective Letter
Write a letter to me reflecting on what you've accomplished/learned in English 101, focusing on some of the rhetorical keywords. I am looking for clear, persuasive evidence for each of your claims. The evidence should be in the form of quotations, descriptions of, and images (from screenshots) of your own work. Publish this on a page called "portfolio letter" on the homepage site.
Checklist: remember to make a claim for what you learned and back it up with evidence:
quote your work
describe your work
paraphrase your work
link to your work
describe/recount your process substantially
show your process with screenshots of drafts
Checklist: remember to make a claim for what you learned and back it up with evidence:
quote your work
describe your work
paraphrase your work
link to your work
describe/recount your process substantially
show your process with screenshots of drafts
Part one prompt:
Using evidence in the form of your own work by linking to it as well as a. quoting it or b. describing it, demonstrate to the Writing Program Assessment team what you learned by composing texts in multiple genres, using multiple modes, with attention to rhetorical situations. Using evidence from your own work (link to it/quote it), find 2-3 examples where you wrote in a genre, in a mode, thinking about rhetorical situations. 101ers: here are things you did that you could write about: In the lit review and elsewhere, you read pieces that were sometimes for a specialized audience and communicated them to less-specialized audiences. This was an expository mode where you explained ideas. Some of the ideas were complex and some of them were simple, but no matter, the fact is, you did the work of communication. You chose issues that were personally important to you and made a case, implicitly or explicitly, for the audience to care as well, even when they had a very different perspective than you did. You talked about your own experience and point of view as a way to engage and inform your audiences and gain credibility with them. You tried a new genre: infographic. You grappled with paring a large or complex topic down to digestible "bites" for a broader audience. Some of you shared your work with public audiences on social media. You got personally meaningful feedback from those audiences. here are some drafty sample beginnings: A. In the review of literature, a scholarly genre (genre, medium), I wanted to educate diabetics and non-diabetics alike (audiences) about carbohydrates (topic). The widespread misinformation about carbohydrates can place diabetics at a health risk or, alternatively, limit their choices unnecessarily (exigence). As a diabetic myself (speaker), . . . . B. In my infographic, I tried to reach a broader audience outside of English 101 . . . Part Two: Critical Thinking and Reading Resulting in Writing. As you undertook scholarly inquiry (research questions, secondary and primary research, interpreting answers), you summarized, analyzed, synthesized, and evaluated the ideas of others. Talk about how you did this, referencing your work. Think about what you have learned this semester in your development as a critical thinker and reader. What realizations do you have about yourself as a person engaged in critical inquiry and scholarship? What projects in your portfolio show your growing abilities to craft an argument, read other's arguments well, and incorporate and challenge ideas from others' writings? Explain one or two important choices you made in this project and how that work developed you as a critical thinker and reader. 101ers: here are things you did that you could write about: You had to think and read critically when choosing a topic, devising research questions, finding secondary research on your topic, selecting sources to use, grouping those sources in the lit review, and selecting what to summarize and how and how it all fit into the bigger picture of your topic. You had to think critically about what to write about in your final four pages. You went back either to your research questions or the project so far and determine what subtopics deserved further exploration. You made decisions about what to develop and how. You had to think critically about a topic that could reach an unlimited audience and how to engage with those audiences You thought critically about how to tailor the slide show presentation to the class based on what the class already knew as well as integrate what we learned about slides and simplicity. You thought critically about accessible design after reading some best practices, which may have led to you editing your writing or design. You synthesized secondary and primary research when you wrote interview write-ups or questions that were informed by the research you did. You thought critically about what information to present in your infographic and how to present it. You had to make sacrifices in content in order to produce something digestible for a casual reading public. You had to choose the most impactful and relevant data or ideas and you thought critically about the purpose of your message. Part three: Writing as a Process You understand writing as a process, implementing strategies of freewriting, brainstorming, invention, research, idea mapping/paragraphing, discussing ideas, drafting, revising, editing and (finally) reflection. Talk about your writing process for one of the projects in your portfolio from conception to completion/reflection. 101ers: here are things you did that you could write about: invent topics think about public audiences regarding the choice of a topic devise research questions use research to help revise research questions integrate secondary research into interview questions (primary research) skim sources; read source abstracts read sources summarize and choose and group sources choose interview subjects, contact them, interview them, choose quotes/transcribe, analyze the interview in light of the rest of the project develop subtopics to write about write rough drafts discuss your ideas in small groups and the whole class look at some student work and discuss it with the whole class talk about your work to the whole class: present it solicit audience feedback on your ideas in progress revise drafts customize a weebly website template with your own content |
KEYWORDS
Genres you composed for Eng 101: a. Review of lit b. Infographic c. Interview questions d. Interview write-ups e. Homepage f. Artifact analysis g. Topic/source analysis h. Blogs i. Reflective blogs j. Slide show/oral presentation k. collaborative rubrics A rhetorical situation is comprised of: 1 Speaker 2 Audience 3 Issue, topic, exigence (why write) 4 Medium (oral presentation, website, etc) Modes include: 1 Narration 2 Description 3 Showing an idea (exposition/expository writing) (analysis) 4 Argument |